Fill In The Blank
by Contemperina
Summary: A random assortment of oneshots covering moments that were mysteriously absent from the show. Chapter 6: Some strange things are going on back on the island during the Playa De Losers episode. Others include: If You Can't Take The Heat, Up The Creek...
1. Three Hours and Counting

**Disclaimer**: I definitely don't own Total Drama Island. If I did, these scenes would be in it.

Out of the three + hours Chris gave the teams in If You Can't Take The Heat, we only saw about 15 minutes. What else happened in that kitchen?

* * *

"Three hours and counting guys!" Chris held up three perfectly manicured fingers to the 12 campers who remained in Chef's kitchen. Trent had already received his challenge-induced injury for the day, and Chris had seen Owen outside with a crate full of oranges on his way in. The host surveyed the room; everyone else seemed to be functioning at at least 50 percent, and that was good enough for him! And, more importantly, good enough for the network.

Upon hearing his statement, the teens immediately turned and began rushing around the kitchen stirring bowls, flipping pans, and performing various other cooking-related activities. Clanging metal battered around as Chris retreated from the overcrowded room with a little screech.

"Hey Bridge, where'd you stick the noodles?"

"No, Lindsey, you—wait! That's _not_ how you do it! Stop!"

"You're just jealous of my superior chopping skills!"

The Bass had been told to remain on the left side of the room while the Gophers were assigned the right. Two cameramen stood at the front of the room, one to cover each of the teams, but they remained silent, faces bored. Duncan sat on a wooden stool, occasionally flicking a pecan or two at the camera guy set up in front of his team, while the rest of the Bass dodged around the tables preparing Chris' meal. Duncan lined up three more nuts on the table for his next assault and got down at eye level. Three, two…

"Duncan, what are you doing now?" Courtney turned from the sink where she was washing her hands for the umpteenth time and glared at the boy in front of her.

"Lining up my next attack, Princess," he said, rising from his seat; being tallest helped to give him a sense of authority, which was always useful when dealing with Courtney. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Watching you bother our _hardworking_—" She shot a smile in the direction of the Wawanakwan intern, "—Camera guy! Why don't you make yourself useful and chop up two cups of your ammo?" She snatched a towel off of the counter and dried her hands, glaring at him all the while.

When she finished, she grabbed a 1 Cup Measurer out of a drawer and chucked it at his face, giving him an annoyed look when he caught it and deposited it on the table. "Hey," he said, "As much as I love knives, I really don't feel like cutting stuff today."

"Then preset the oven." Duncan shook his head. "200 degrees Celsius." He crossed his arms. "You have 12 seconds." He raised his eyebrow in a 'what-else-you-got?' sort of way.

Courtney stomped over to where he stood smirking and stood on her toes to get to eyelevel. "Look," she began. "You obviously don't have _any_ culinary skills to speak of, so if you want to sit back and let me do everything and take _all_ of the credit for my fabulous dish, that's perfectly fine with me. Just DON'T sit there being counter-productive, because that's what might cost us this challenge!"

"Hey," Duncan said, fighting to establish some dominance over the situation. "I have plenty of 'culinary skills'. I just won't waste them on desserts designed by _you_." Courtney's attempt at reverse-psychology apparently wasn't working that well.

"Oh, yeah?" Her hands clenched up.

"You heard me!" He picked up a pecan that hadn't been fired and shot it at her face.

She twitched as it bounced off her forehead at hit the floor—"Yee-ah, perfect shot!"—snatched a knife off of the counter, and shook it under his nose. Duncan somehow managed not to look the least bit perturbed by the murderous look on her face.

"Whoa, whoa, Courtney, Duncan, hold up!" Geoff popped up between the two and gently took the knife out of Courtney's hands. "There's no need to fight, guys!" Geoff turned to the smirking Duncan. "Duncan, dude, just chop the nuts." Duncan raised his eyebrow, but didn't argue. Geoff flipped to face Courtney. "And Courtney, why don't you, uh, not kill my main man, okay?"

Her gaze came away from Duncan's smirk and fixed itself on the smiling Geoff in front of her. "It's not so easy as you make it sound, Geoff." She gestured from the oven and back to Duncan and said, "The imbecile here evidently finds it too difficult to push a few measly buttons!"

"That's not true, Sweetheart," he said, a brilliant response formulating in his mind. He let a moment pass and then said, "I'm just too busy pushing buttons somewhere else!" He winked at her suggestively and busted out laughing while Geoff fought the urge to join him, knowing that it would not help to make progress with the duo.

"Ugh!" She rolled her eyes and stomped off, grabbing a bowl and furiously cracking an egg against the side.

"Dude," Geoff began. "You've got to ease up on that girl. She looked like she was ready to stab you!"

Duncan chuckled and looked over Geoff's shoulder at his partner. "That's just the way I like it." He held up his fist for pounding and Geoff responded with his own.

"All right man," he said, starting to walk away. "But if I were you, I'd sleep with one eye open tonight."

"Trust me," Duncan said, dumping a bag of pecans on the counter, not bothering to measure the two cups he'd been instructed to. He picked up a huge knife generally reserved for cutting meat and went to work. "When you've been in juvy, you sleep with one eye open anyway."

* * *

On the other side of the room, Beth stood with Leshawna, watching the confrontation from behind the safety of their splintery table. She grabbed a pineapple and turned to her partner, who was laughing under her breath.

Leshawna picked up a mango, carefully avoiding skin contact with the six remaining pineapples on the table, and began pealing it. "I can hardly believe those two," she said. "Going around pretending they don't like each other like there's no tomorrow!"

Beth looked up from her fruit, eyes wide. "You really think they're pretending? They th-eem to hate each other."

"Nah, that's just on the outside, girl." She shook her head and tossed a piece of mango skin into the garbage. "They just don't wanna admit that they like someone who's 'not their type'." She made air-quotes with one hand and started laughing again.

"Ohhh," Beth said. "That's makes th-ense. You mus-th know a lot about that kind of thing."

"Oh, I've been through my fair share of relationships, and seen even more go _down_." Her finger pointed in the direction she spoke of. She looked up at Beth, who avoided her gaze by returning to her pineapple. "You ever had a man?" she asked, already pretty sure of the answer.

"Oh, no, not really." Beth's chunky ponytail swayed behind her as she cut at the pineapple skin. "Guys aren't really all that…into me." She shrugged, trying to act not too incredibly concerned.

Leshawna turned to Beth and gave her a smile. She was a pretty cool little white girl, despite her outward appearance. It was sad, really, Leshawna always thought, that nobody ever really gave her a chance. "Well, consider yourself lucky, 'cause let me tell you, boys are nothin' but trouble!"

"Really?" Beth asked hopefully.

"Heck yes! Trust me, you are not missing a thing." And while that wasn't necessarily true, Leshawna felt that she'd be doing the girl a favor by making her feel better about her social life. And anyway, it wasn't like what she said wasn't legit! "Guys are tricky business, better left alone until you can handle their stupidity."

With that said, she got up to go grab a bowl to place her mango cubes in. Heather, however, blocked her way.

The head-chef placed a hand on her hip and attempted to stare Leshawna down. "And where are _you_ going?"

"_I'm_ going to grab a bowl for my mangos, so if you'll just move OUTTA my way—"

"Let me see them first." Heather held out a hand.

Leshawna took a moment to process this demand and came up short. "Ex-cuuuse me?"

"I said, let me see your mangos." Heather went on the offensive.

"Why?" Leshawna demanded in a tone that was always a sign of near confrontation and/or violence.

"Because I said so," Heather clipped.

"That's not a good reason!"

"Just let me see them!" Leshawna moved to shove her out of the way, but Beth poked in between them, holding the mango cubes on a cutting board.

"They're right here, Heather," she said, hoping to avoid another fight. Those two got into enough of them outside of challenges, where there wasn't the added stress of immediate competition. Heather took the board from Beth and picked up one of the little cubes, examining it like a precious jewel.

"Yup, knew it! These cubes aren't small enough. Go back and cut them all in half."

"There's no need to do that," Leshawna argued. "I'm just gonna grind them up in your mango dip anyway!"

"Look," Heather said, glowering at the girl opposite her. "Are you the one who's made this recipe a dozen times?" Leshawna narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, didn't think so. So don't ask, just do!" Beth quietly tugged on the larger girl's shoulder until she sat and picked up her miniature knife. Satisfied, Heather moved on from their table and went to reprimand Gwen on her batter-stirring technique.

"I can not believe that girl, making me cut each of these teeny little squares again! I bet she'll make me cut them into fourths after I'm done!" She mimicked Heather's voice saying, "Those aren't small enough, Leshawna, cut them again, Leshawna!" And then, returning to her natural tone, said, "Ugh! That girl is insufferable!" She'd spoken quite loudly, but Heather was either too busy to notice or chose to ignore her.

Beth, while impressed with Leshawna's vocabulary, seemed a bit torn between her old loyalty to Heather and new loyalty to her friend. "Well, I don't know… it _i-th _her re-th-ipe." She tossed a pile of pineapple skin into the garbage and fell into silence while Leshawna muttered anti-Heather-y things under her breath.

* * *

"Okay, dude, you got this," DJ was saying to his not-so-bright friend. "She's right over there," he said, pointing to Bridgette, "And she's mad at Heather for bossing Leshawna around. Just go say something nice to her that doesn't involve looking like a mom and you'll be golden in comparison, a'ight?" He patted Geoff on the back.

"Got it, dude." He flashed his pal a thumbs up. "Operation Mend-The-Bridge is a-go!"

"Operation mend the…" DJ's voice trailed off. "Oh, geez." He put a hand to his head and leaned against the fridge, hoping that Geoff's brain was open to telepathy; he would be needing a little help today. _Have faith in a brother, DJ, have faith!_ He tried to convince himself that Geoff knew what he was doing but failed rather miserably.

Bridgette was standing over the sink struggling to open a can of tomato sauce when Geoff bounced up next to her.

"Uh, heya Bridge." He fiddled with his cowboy hat.

She readjusted the old-fashioned can opener and tried to crank the handle again. "Hi, Geoff." Her voice was measured, but she didn't look hostile like a person would expect. But of course, Bridgette never looked hostile.

Geoff looked over his shoulder at DJ, who made a shoo-ing, 'keep going!' motion with his hands. Duncan stood next to him and gave him the universal signal for 'rock on!', along with the expected smirk.

"You, uh, doing well with that, uh… can?" he asked as Bridgette leaned her full body weight on the container in an attempt to get it open. He heard Duncan snigger from behind him, causing him to release a sheepish smile.

Bridgette looked up from repositioning the opener for a fourth time and sighed, noting his sincerity. "Not really, no." She held it up for him. "Open it for me?"

"No problem!" Geoff took the device from her and wiggled it into place, happy to have the chance to make himself forgiven. He hadn't even realized that Bridgette was mad at him until DJ took him aside and explained the whole 'Evan's Mom' situation, but better to fix it late than never! Returning to the task at hand, he cranked the can opener handle, but it wasn't budging. Bridgette raised her eyebrows, a tiny grin playing on her lips.

Grabbing a towel off of the counter, he wrapped it around the handle and tried again, but had no luck. "Just, uh, hold on Bridgette." The outdated kitchen tool definitely wasn't moving; maybe faulty cooking equipment was the reason behind Chef's nasty cooking!

Geoff brought the can close to his chest and, with a burst of energy, gave the can opener one last, massive crank. _Pop! _Air rushed out of the can as the top fell in, little drops of tomato sauce bursting out half a meter in different directions.

From the opposite side of the kitchen Geoff heard Duncan cracking up, and DJ saying, "Aw, man!"

He let out a loud, "Woo-hoo!" of victory over the can and punched his fist into the air. "Here ya go, B. That's one tough can right there." He smiled as he handed it to her, and then noticed a large speck of the red sauce between her eyebrows. "Whoa, sorry, looks like I nailed you between the brows, dudette!"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess so." Bridgette moved to wipe her face, but Geoff got the dishtowel in his grip and gingerly wiped the sauce off before she managed to. Her eyes moved up toward his hand and she smiled. "Thanks, Geoff."

"Sure thing, Bridge! You and Deej are, uh, doing a great job with the pasta. Keep it up!"

"Sure thing," she replied, imitating his words. "I'll let you know if I need you to open any more cans for me." She flashed him a smile, and Geoff became certain that all was forgiven. He turned to Duncan and DJ for confirmation, but they were nowhere to be seen. He realized that they were probably busy preparing for phase three of Make Harold Stop Leaving His Underwear Everywhere. Nice!

"Oh, by the way Bridge, sorry if you, like, break out right here or something." He lifted up his hat and pointed to the area between his eyebrows on himself.

"Come again?" Bridgette looked unsure of the purpose of Geoff's statement, so he went to clarify.

"I mean, I just hope that the tomato sauce doesn't, like, clog up your pores or something. I don't want it to be my fault if you get a gross pimple right there." He shrugged and smiled at her again, not realizing that he'd just made a mega-sized blunder.

Bridgette narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out if what he'd just said was what he'd _meant_ to say. "Right… Well, I think Harold needs your help now, Geoff." She hadn't looked at Harold at all, but that boy always needed help in one form or another.

Geoff glanced over his shoulder. "Whoa, you're right! Talk to you later, Bridgette!" With that, he ran over to help Harold gather up the sausage links that had begun spilling uncontrollably out of the box.

Black and white stripes over pink moved into Bridgette's peripheral vision, the owner asking, "Oh my gosh, did Geoff just tell you that you get gross pimples between your eyebrows?" Sadie cocked her head to the side and held up her pointer finger. "Because that is SO not okay."

Bridgette scrunched her mouth to the side and back. "I really have no idea what Geoff just said," she told the girl honestly. "And I'm even _less_ sure of what he'd meant to say." She shrugged and picked up tomato sauce can number three and set to work opening it, deciding to attempt to give Geoff the benefit of the doubt. _He's running out of Get Out Of Jail Free cards, though, _she thought, while Sadie prepared to recite a relevant article or two out of her favorite magazine.

* * *

"Lindsey." Gwen stood by the oven, trying to get the blonde's attention. "Lindsey. Lindsey!" The girl was completely focused on something going on with the Bass—again. Gwen glanced though the oven's peephole; the cake was almost finished, and Heather had been _incredibly _clear that leaving it in there for one second too long would result in dire consequences.

Gwen glanced at the timer, which was ticking down from 18 seconds. "Whoa, look," she called to Lindsey sarcastically. "It's Tyler!"

"Tyler! Where?" Gwen rolled her eyes at the means she had used to break into Lindsey's concentration.

"Nowhere. Now pass me those oven mitts." She pointed at the charred, grey mitts sitting on the table. Eleven seconds left on the oven and Heather was staring at her, daring her to leave the precious cake in for a second too long. Gwen ordinarily would have just left it to burn, if only to spite Heather, but this was an actual challenge with actual consequences, and the epitome of evil would NOT be receiving an extra reason to want Gwen gone that week.

Upon noticing the mitts by her right hand, Lindsey picked them up and handed them over just as the timer went off.

"Finally!" Gwen pulled the oven door open, releasing a wave of heat and the smell of Upside-Down Cake [soon to be] Flambé. She slipped the mitts on, carefully removed their creation, and set it on the counter.

"Oooh, that smells soooo good!" Lindsey squealed, clapping her hands. After she finished, her left hand shot up into the air. "I call decorating it!"

"Lindsey, we're not decorating it." The poor girl looked inexplicably heartbroken. "It's going to be on _fire_." She looked exceptionally confused. "That's what the 'flambé' part means." Gwen rolled her eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

"Ohhhhhh." Lindsey's eyes widened in understanding and she nodded her head. "Well, can I decorate it anyways?"

Gwen blinked at the blonde but didn't dare to say anything.

"Glen, did you hear me? I asked, Can I decorate it an—"

"Yes, Lindsey, fine!" Gwen flattened her hand against the table. "You can decorate it! Go for it. Have a cow. Knock yourself out. _Please_."

"Ooh, yay!" Lindsey bounced around the table, picking up random ingredients left over from Leshawna and Beth's pineapple/mango concoction, including a couple of things that wouldn't be very tasty on a cake, even if it did happen to be set on fire.

Gwen watched as Lindsey made a full circle around the table and ended back up where she had started. The paler of the two snatched a cup of yogurt and a bottle of Tabasco sauce out of the tanner one's hands. "All right Lindsey, let me put this simply." Gwen held up the cup of yogurt and looked at the label. "Peach flavored yogurt is not good on cake." In the other hand, she held up a bottle whose label depicted a burning skull. Yummy. "Spicy liquids are not good either." She held the yogurt up again—"Yogurt is for mango dip,"—and then raised the other bottle, saying, "And spicy sauce is for ribs. Okay?"

Gwen picked up a mango a shoved it at Lindsey. "Cut this up and put the slices on top of the cake, yeah?" Then, figuring that it probably wasn't very wise to trust the bubblehead with a knife, said, "Or you know what? Here. Have an orange." She picked one up out of the crate and gave it to her. "You can peel it and put the slices on the cake all by yourself."

The blonde stared down at the orange in her hands. She poked at the fruit and tried squeezing it a little, but eventually gave up and asked, with complete sincerity, "So, how do I peel an orange?"

"Oh, just give it to me!" Gwen snatched the fruit from her and removed the skin, then set about finding the flambé liquid for the cake. However, upon locating it, she realized she had absolutely no idea how one was supposed to go about setting a cake on fire.

She stood next to Lindsey and looked from the liquid to the cake, and back again. "Any idea how to use this stuff?" she asked.

Lindsey shrugged and waved her painted fingernails around in a way that conveyed 'how should I know?' "Glen, I never even heard of flamday liquid before today. How should I know what to do?"

Gwen snorted and looked for directions on the container. "Good point." Why was she even asking Lindsey for help? Working with the blonde was obviously damaging some of her brain cells. "And it's flambé. Flahhm baaay."

Giving up on looking for instructions that weren't there, Gwen said, "Well, I guess we just pour it on and it lights itself." Lindsey shrugged again.

"So, three…" She lifted the container. "…Two…" She prepared for the cake to set itself on fire. "One!" She dumped all of the liquid onto the cake and Lindsey ducked under the table.

A second later, she peeked over the edge and asked, "Did it work? Is it on fire? It didn't mess up my hair, did it?"

Having no idea how setting the cake on fire (or not setting it on fire, as the case had been) would affect Lindsey's hair, she just said, "Your hair's fine, Lindsey. The cake definitely isn't on fire, though."

"Maybe you should ask Heather," the blonde suggested.

"We're not asking Heather." Asking Heather for help was like inviting a pit-bull to eat you.

"Are you sure? Because you're right, the cake's totally not on fire."

"We're not asking Heather," Gwen repeated.

"I don't know, I really think we should, because—"

"Fine! Go ask her, just make sure you leave me out of it." Gwen closed her eyes and blinked them open again.

Lindsey smiled happily, pleased that her partner had taken her suggestion, and went to go find the head-chef.

Gwen put her own head in her hands, Heather approaching a moment later to meet Lindsey. Ready to demonstrate her cake flambé-ing superiority, Heather snapped, "What's wrong?"

Under her breath, in a silent attempt at rebellion, Gwen muttered, "Shoot me now, please!" Too bad the only person who could have made her change her mind was stuck in the infirmary.

* * *

"Okay, Bass," Geoff called, "Reel it in!"

Each pair in a different stage of meal preparation, the six members dropped what they were doing and assembled around the wooden table in the middle of the room. An assortment of mumblings could be heard, including Bridgette's easygoing, "What's up?" and Courtney's "Again, Geoff? Really?", followed by Duncan's, "Oh, shut it Princess." He grunted as she elbowed him in the ribs.

The Bass team was familiar with the procedure by this point, seeing that they had gone through it twice already; when Geoff pointed at Sadie and Harold and hollered, "Status report, Team Appetizer!" they responded with military precision.

"The olives and cheeses for the antipasto are ready, but we're waiting on the sausage," Harold announced, still clad in his cowboy pajamas.

"Because, like, if you cook sausage too early it can get all cold and stuff, and then it's just gross!" Sadie added. "I mean, who wants to eat that?"

"Not me," Harold declared. "You know, I read this book once about some of the microorganisms that sometimes start producing on cooled meat. It's pretty interesting, really. Like, there's this one species of archaebacteria called—"

"All right Antipasto!" Geoff cut him off. Harold's stories generally resulted in someone puking, and that would not be good for his team's rep with the Chris-meister. "You've got half an hour to finish. Doable?"

Harold saluted while Sadie nodded enthusiastically and said, "Oh, totally!" The pair spun back around to the counter where they had been preparing the sausage links and returned to work.

"All right, Team Dessert, status report!" He turned to his most aggressive pairing and found that they were too busy beating each other up to hear his call; Duncan stepped on Courtney's foot in response the previous elbow in his ribs; she kicked his shin. Duncan prepared to retaliate but was cut off when DJ punched his shoulder and Bridgette tapped the brunette from behind.

"Yo, guys, Head Chef wants a status report!" DJ jerked a thumb at Geoff.

"Oh, sorry Geoff." Courtney cleared her throat and said, "So the custard's all ready, but—"

Duncan cut her off with "We're not going to put it in the pastry too early—"

"Or else it will get_ soggy_—" Courtney pressed on.

"And that's just nasty."

She glared at him. "So I'm going to give it about 15 more minutes, then squeeze in the filling." Courtney shot an aggravated look at the Mohawked boy while Duncan stood next to her, a curiously smug look on his face.

"So…" Geoff tried to think through all of the words that had just been fired at him.

Courtney sighed and declared, "We'll be ready in half and hour," at the exact moment that Duncan said, "Just give us 30, man." They gaped at each other for a moment, realizing they'd practically said the exact same thing. Courtney quickly returned to her dessert to hide her embarrassment and Duncan followed to make fun of her for it. A little chuckle came from Bridgette.

"Awesomeness!" Geoff called to the pair, but they were too busy arguing to hear (or maybe just too busy to acknowledge him.) He shrugged and turned to the final group. "Team Entree, status report!"

Bridgette didn't look like she'd be providing an answer, so DJ said, "The sauce and the pasta are on the stove keeping warm. We'll be ready whenever you are, Chief." He noticed that Bridgette looked unusually peeved and decided to use this next half hour to figure out why, and to fix it. Geoff had probably said something stupid again. Damn his not-working powers of telepathy...

"All right Bass, doing awesome! Half an hour, and then it's party time!" Geoff's team responded with a chorus of shouts and whoops as they returned to their stations to put the finishing touches on the dishes.

* * *

Upon hearing that there was half an hour left, Heather went about instructing her team as well. They, however, weren't quite as receptive to her demands as the Bass were to Geoff's. To the Gophers' credit, though, Heather wasn't as friendly with her instructions either.

"Gwen, more orange slices on the cake. And they should look, oh, I don't know, _good?_"

"Hey, don't look at me." Gwen glanced up from the icing she was mixing, remembered Heather's nonexistent eyebrows, and started giggling for the third or fourth time that hour. She would get busy doing something and forget about the little explosion (which she was quite proud that she'd helped to cause), so it was always a surprise when she looked up at Heather's bare face again. She got her laughter under enough control to say, "That was Lindsey's job!" before she broke out in another fit.

"Quit your snickering, Weird Goth Girl!" Heather stomped her foot and looked out of the door for Owen. Where was that boy? It was NOT hard to go pick up a make-up bag, and she had a desperate need for one!

She decided to exercise her authority over the one person who was guaranteed to listen. "Lindsey! The distribution of those orange slices is totally off balance. Fix it."

Lindsey's eyes got wide and her bottom lip stuck out. "Awwww, I—I tried Heather, I really, really d-did! I don't know how to make them any evener! I tried my hardest!" Heather realized that her minion was about a split second from bursting out into tears, so she ditched her attempts with Lindsey and called for Leshawna.

"Oh, just forget it. Leshawna, fix the oranges!"

"Did she really just tell me to fix the oranges?" Leshawna asked Beth, who nodded. She faced Heather again and said, "Are you frontin' me? You made me cut the pineapples, so I'm cutting the dang pineapples! So don't you come over here and expect me to drop what I'm doing to rebalance your cake! I've already got the rash! I'm finishing the job I started!"

Leshawna's sudden outburst paralyzed the Queen Bee for a split second, but she quickly recovered and sniffed disapprovingly. "Fine then. Beth will do it, won't you, Beth?"

Beth glanced down at her finished mango sauce and failed to think of an excuse to disobey Heather. "I…I… gue-th so," she said grudgingly. "But only because no one el-th will!" She walked over to the cake and stood examining it with Lindsey, trying to spot any imperfection in the orange placement.

Owen burst into the kitchen then, hardly recognizable through all of his insect stings, carrying Heather's make-up bag. "Don't just stand there! Give it!" Heather held out her hands for her make-up bag. Owen tossed it to her haphazardly as he fell to the floor, and there was just enough room in that toss for a Screaming Gopher rebellion…

* * *

About 15 minutes later, Chris came in announcing that it was time for the taste-testing to begin. Each of the Bass members carried in their platters with their partner, their chatter accented by Geoff's enthusiastic whooping. Leshawna took charge of the Gophers and instructed Owen to stay behind with the team's meal.

"Princess, just let me carry the plate. It's not like your scrawny arms could hold it up anyway."

"Those Gophers need to prepare for a ninja-sized beating!"

"Hey! I'll have you know that all CITs are required to be able to do at least four pull-ups. I have plenty of upper body strength!"

"Wooooo-hoo! Dudes and dudettes, are we ready?"

"…Yeah!" It took them all a moment, but they responded.

"Here goes nothing!" Geoff led both teams into the kitchen where Chris greeted them with an animated, "All right. Let the Taste-Test Challenge… begin!"

And so it did.

* * *

I hope you all enjoyed-I know I had a great time with the writing! The Bass are definitely my favorites, but all of the characters have their own personalities. They practically write the dialogue themselves.

Thanks for reading! Please review. :)


	2. Locking Antlers and Butting Heads

**Locking Antlers and Butting Heads **

A DxC moment taking place during Paintball Deer Hunter after they got their antlers stuck together. Being the good DxC supporter that I am, I always wondered how they possibly managed to decide which way camp was, and how they got back there without killing each other…

It begins with a small snip-it of the script you've all seen before, but fast-forward to paragraph… 5 and the new material begins. If you're really, _really_ impatient, that is.

"Very funny. Now let me go!" Courtney shouted. _It's just like him to get us stuck together like this, _she thought. _How could he be so stupid? _She grunted and continued trying to separate his antlers from hers. 'Why do smell worse than usual?' though a smart insult, was completely _not_ worth the unfortunate situation she found herself trapped in.

"Uh, Princess, this isn't my idea of fun either," Duncan retorted. The trademark smirk that had pasted itself to his face, however, indicated otherwise, a face that Courtney didn't fail to notice.

Positioning herself in a huge lunge and yanking her head away from his, she responded with one of her hardest glares. Sadly, yanking her head put her no closer to freedom, but it did cause her neck to hurt. She winced. "Great, Duncan. Now what?" She tried to turn and glare at him, but the antlers wouldn't allow it. She settled for glaring at the camera sitting in front of her face, "disguised" as part of a tree. It was really just thrown haphazardly into some rotted out hole and covered with a few leaves, and the lens was still completely visible.

"...You wanna make out?" There was a laugh in Duncan's voice as he taunted her. He knew that she would never agree, but it was almost more fun to try to make the girl angry. He went to turn and make an I'm-so-adorably-hopeful face towards her, but the antlers held his head cockeyed. He settled for looking at her out of the corner of his eye with a devilish grin.

"_No!_" Courtney's eyes went wide as she grappled for a response to the nauseating question. She thought for a moment before adding on, as a simple jab at the boy across from her, "I might get rabies," complete with a very un-Courtney-like sneer. Of course, being a former CIT, she knew that humans only contracted rabies when bitten by wild animals with the same condition, but the implication fit well enough. And then, because Courtney had the nasty habit of trying to keep dead conversations alive, she asked, "What kind of person would I be if I let my face get that close to _yours_?"

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed," Duncan began, "but our faces are pretty close together already." It was true, of course. The antlers weren't that long to begin with and, caught together as they were, Duncan and Courtney were left with nothing more than the space of a hand between their faces. Duncan pressed his cheek up to hers to illustrate his point, despite the pain that shot up the side of his neck. Her lips pursed and she rolled her eyes, but didn't move away. Duncan's mind dully registered that she was probably just trying to avoid neck pain herself, but he considered the move a success nonetheless. And then, upon noticing a camera that looked like it had been chucked into a tree from across the creek (or five), he decided it was time to end their anti-moment.

"So, to answer your question, I'd say you're still the bossy, uptight, goody-two-shoes girl you were ten seconds ago," he announced, blowing a huge gust of air into the girl's face.

Courtney blinked in shock as his breath hit her eyes, narrowing them a second later. She inhaled deeply, as if preparing to sigh, but before she could stop herself, she broke into a massive coughing fit.

Duncan stared at her there beside him, hacking up a lung like there was no tomorrow, and he made a mental note to steal some of Harold's gum later that evening; did his breath really smell _that_ bad? It wasn't perfume, he knew, but honestly! Was it enough to choke a girl to death? Duncan, his head violently jerking around with each of Courtney's coughs, waited impatiently for them to subside. Tapping his foot, he mulled over the situation in his brain until he came up with his next jibe towards the female—probably something about her having a low tolerance for his tempting scent. He never got the chance to voice it, however, because she just kept coughing, though they eventually became louder. And theatrical. And noticeably fake.

"Oh, wow, Princess," he said, piling on the sarcasm. "You're _really_ funny." He gave her a 'friendly' pound on the back to finish her 'coughing', aggravated that she'd kept him believing her game for a minute at least. _Pathetic. _He made a mental note to keep on his toes for the rest of their trek back to camp.

Duncan's quote-unquote "friendly" pound a little to forceful for her to handle, Courtney stumbled forward a few steps, dragging Duncan along with her. With a mild smile (that Duncan couldn't help reading too far into. It seemed to say, "Ha! I win, sucker), she leaned down, resting her hands on her knees, locking her elbows, and ending the show. She didn't miss Duncan's look of irritation as she dragged his head down with hers, either. "I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on," she said matter-of-factly.

Duncan sneered at her, seriously considering throwing off his antlers and wrestling her to the ground then and there.

"Now, if you can find the self-control within yourself to keep your mouth _shut_," she continued, ignoring his icy stare, "we're going back to camp." She straightened up as much as she could, dragging Duncan's head along with hers, and began side-stepping in the direction of the dining hall.

Duncan, putting his internal frustration towards a more useful cause, dug his heels into the grass firmly, cutting off the prep in front of him like a dog on a leash. "And where are _you_ going?" he asked her, an eyebrow raised.

Courtney stopped struggling, though she didn't turn to look at him. He always needed to pick a fight, she was quickly realizing. She was right, of course, but she stood waiting for some elaboration, some reason why she was once again incorrect.

Duncan was happy to _not_ elaborate.

Realizing that further explanation was not forthcoming, Courtney sighed, turned over her shoulder, and threw her hands on her hips with a huff. Struggling to look the delinquent in the eye (not because it was difficult mentally but because the antlers simply weren't conducive to turning one's head), she lilted, putting unnecessary emphasis on her words, "_I'm_ going to the _dining hall_, where we _always _meet after _every_ challenge, and _you're_ coming with me. Or did you already _forget_ since the last challenge _three days _ago?" She said it slowly and carefully, as if she were talking to some of the small children she worked with during several of her extracurriculars.

Duncan flicked his gaze up to hers and did his best to look intimidating, though the effect was mostly muted by the antlers, tail, and Rudolf-red nose. "Don't you start getting all condescending on _me_, Darling," he warned, falling back into his comfort zone: the dangerous, I'll-break-your-arm-and-not-care delinquent. His eyes serious and unforgiving, he stared into hers, which immediately narrowed. Neither moved for several moments, not daring to budge, speak, or even blink.

Without verbally announcing it, or even fully realizing it, they'd fallen into a competition much more familiar to ferocious jungle animals—the fight for dominance. They stood there glowering at each other for slightly longer than a minute (which doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things but is rather a lot when you're connected at the head to someone you detest). Courtney holding herself in a lunge and Duncan leaning over her with his arms crossed, they simultaneously realized that the other wasn't going back down. They would have been there all day if it wasn't for Duncan taking a moment of thought and then pulling his head back to the sky, which yanked Courtney's back as well. Both of them were forced to break their stares, along with their predatory poses, as leaves and twig assaulted their vision.

"Ha!" Duncan laughed abruptly, swatting at a branch over his head. "Now we both lose." He snickered as Courtney furiously opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off by saying, "Now, shut up so we can go back to camp, which is _this way_." He immediately turned and started hiking in the opposite direction of where Courtney had been headed.

Taken aback by his brute disregard for her opinion, she obviously tried to resist his pull. Unfortunately for her, Duncan was the larger of the two and dragged her along until she was compelled to start walking on her own. _Nice to be the bigger one,_ he thought briefly.

"Where are you going?!" Courtney screeched, not appreciating being dragged around like some pet. _A pet with a leash attached to my _head, she amended grimly. "I am absolutely positive that the dining hall is in the _other direction_." She stomped down on a tree-side mushroom in her fury, grimacing as a family of ants scattered out from under it.

Duncan merely continued tramping across the forest. "I completely agree with you," he announced, continuing to walk away from her said destination. "The dining hall _is_ the other way." He smirked, reveling in the frustration he could practically feel radiating off of her.

At those words, Courtney kicked her up struggle another notch, but Duncan pushed forward, pulling Courtney helplessly behind. "Then WHERE ARE WE GOING?!" she shrieked, pounding on her captor's back for a solid two seconds before he snatched up her hands and flung them back at her.

In the silence required for her to take a deep breath (only so she could continue screaming), she heard the crunch of leaves as a squirrel skittered away from their path of destruction. _No wonder_. Between the two teenagers, there would be a path of broken sticks and crushed leaves through the forest for weeks.

Duncan, becoming aware of this as well, briefly acknowledged the fact that they, being deer, should have been quietly trying to avoid getting paintballed, but he hadn't heard any unnatural activity in the woods for a while, so he was willing to take his chances. Plus, it would be _really_ funny to see Princess covered in paint, and her reaction? Even funnier.

"We're going to the medical tent, Drama Queen," Duncan explained. "Now _chill_."

Courtney tried to jerk him to a halt, and though it didn't affect him in the slightest, he decided to humor her and momentarily end the brutal destruction of the Wawanakwan nature. He'd find another squirrel's tail to step on later.

"Duncan!" she yelled up at him and his ever-present smirk. "_Why_ are we going to the medical tent?! Do you not realize that it's all the way across the island from the dining hall?" What was that idiot doing, taking them so far away from their destination? And then Courtney, being the prepared, mistrustful, and just overall suspicious girl that she was, conjured up a circumstance in her mind that made her want to panic…

"As a matter of fact," Duncan mimicked, entirely unaware of her new-found paranoia, "I do realize that the medical tent is 'all the way across the island from the dining hall!'" He wished that he had a camera to capture her expression at that very moment. It was a mix of anger, frustration, exasperation, and... suspicion? Fear? It had him stumped for a moment, but remembering whom he was and what he looked like, not to mention the fact that they were all alone in a secluded part of a secluded island, her reasoning become clear soon enough. "Oh, _wow_, Princess, paranoid much?" he asked, reading her like the angry, frustrated, exasperated, suspicious book that she was.

Duncan took a moment to appreciate the irony of the moment. Here they were, attached at the head and stuck in the woods, at least half an hour away from the public, if you could even call Camp Wawanakwa that. With anyone else, (not counting the eight remaining chicks on the island, he later amended) it would have been the perfect opportunity to chuck those antlers and start making out! Somehow, though, Duncan didn't quite see that happening—not in _that_ place with _that_ girl. One, Courtney would never allow him to take off his antlers for fear of their team becoming 'toast', as Chris had so eloquently put it. And two, she would probably kick him in a very unpleasant place if he tried anything on her; it wouldn't have been the first time.

"I swear I won't try anything on you, all right?" he assured her smugly, holding up his hands in an _I surrender_ fashion. She visibly relaxed and was about to say something when he added, unable to resist, "Unless, of course, you want me to..." He wiggled his eyebrows at her and bumped her shoulder with his own.

On contact, Courtney tensed up, set her jaw, and stomped on his foot with nearly enough force to remove one of his toes.

"Damn it, Princess, that hurt!" Duncan howled at her. "What are those shoes made out of, lead?" He put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself as he started rubbing at his instep. Courtney moved to shrug it off, but he just gripped her tighter. Sure, he was hamming up the pain a _little_ bit (but not too much. That girl was a freaking dynamo), but under what other circumstances would Courtney allow him to touch her shoulder? Oh, the levels that he'd been forced to stoop to, just for skin contact. _Pathetic. _Again.

"I'm being merciful, so consider yourself lucky," she said without a glance in his direction. "Say anything like that again, and you'll find my foot in another _extremely_ painful place for you, capiche?" She primly removed his hand from its perch and moved to tread back the way that they had come.

Much to her chagrin, before she could make more than a meter of progress, Duncan grabbed her wrist and resumed creating their path of forest-y destruction towards the Trent Tent. Seriously, Duncan thought, chuckling to himself at the clever name he'd just come up with, that guy had been in there more times than everyone else combined! That wasn't relevant at the moment, though, Duncan knew. There was a much hotter, angrier girl screaming at him, demanding his attention.

"Duncan! Why are we going to the medical tent?!" she shouted, furiously shaking his grip off from around her wrist.

Sighing, he felt it was his duty to put the girl out of her misery. "Because Chris told us to," he said evenly, using just a bit of willpower in not adding a girly 'duh!' onto the end of his sentence.

Courtney felt Duncan's eyes on her, but she stared straight ahead, considering his statement. Producing no memory of the event, however, she eventually met his gaze blankly, waiting for him to provide details.

This time, he actually provided. "Before he sent us into the woods?" Duncan reminded, gesturing with his hands. "Sir Hair Gel told us to meet by the medical tents when we finish so that we don't go dripping paint into Chef's _precious_ kitchen." And then, adding on the obligatory jab at her intelligence, he continued with, "How did you possibly miss that? He said it through the megaphone!" The boy chuckled at how flustered this new information had made Courtney. "Not used to missing out on big information, huh, Sweetheart?"

"No, not really!" she snapped. His laughter was infuriating, being called "Sweetheart" even more so. Managing to collect herself enough to eye him distastefully, she retorted, "Bridgette must have been talking to me or something." His explanation for heading back to the medical tent was plausible, she supposed—Chef would kill anyone who damaged his kitchen—and she had to admit that she'd caught herself zoning out while Chris was explaining the many rules to the challenge. Courtney, though it hurt her pride deep down, took a leap of faith, backed up by a long and logical thought process, and took Duncan for his word.

"Oh sure, Princess, blame it all on Bridgette," he joked, obviously not buying her excuse. He smiled, a real, scowl-free smile, amused by her desire to defend her position, even when it wasn't necessary.

Courtney glared back at him, but it softened as soon as she saw his genuine smile. Not a smirk, nor a scowl, but a real smile. Seeing a kind expression of the pierced face of her partner surprised her, to say the least, and, to say a little more, made her wonder if she was still on the same planet.

Momentarily forgetting about the antlers, Duncan tried to square off with her only to be reminded of the cramp that had long ago developed in his neck. "Agh," he cursed quietly as he rubbed the top of his spine. "Look," he spoke up. "I know you used to be a CIT and you're married to the rules and everything, but my neck is _killing_ me and I'm taking these antlers off, NOW." As he sauntered beside her, he became highly aware of how difficult it was to look threatening while his head was tilted at such an awkward angle.

"NO!" Courtney stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you not see those cameras, Duncan?" she asked, gesturing around. He followed her gaze and saw two poorly hidden lenses staring back at him right off the bat, as well as one very suspicious looking bird's nest. He looked back at her as she said, punctuating every syllable very carefully, "Those inadequately hidden cameras are recording everything we do." Then, returning to her regular speech, "Chris will have our heads if he sees us if we take the antlers off, and then the Bass will have _our _heads! I am not going to let _you_—" she jabbed her finger at his chest, "be responsible for losing this challenge for our team!"

She sniffed authoritatively and began walking again, signaling the end of their discussion.

Duncan thanked the Lord that she was done ranting, briefly considered silence, and then mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the idea of quiet in the first place. Then, he said the one crude, inappropriate, completely out-of-the-blue thing that was sure to irritate her: "That's all true, but you can't kiss me while we're wearing these things, and I _know _that's killing you inside!" He wrapped his arm around her waist, but she instantly shoved him away.

Courtney roughly turned to face him, but Duncan just ended up rotating around next to her. Had a person been there to see it, he or she would of been reminded of a dog chasing its tail. "NO!" she shouted again. "It's not 'killing me inside'. As a matter of fact, _Duncan_, I do not have even the slightest desire to get anywhere near you! I don't want to kiss you! At all! You are such a… an attention whore!" A bird flew out of the nearest tree in fright, which would have been amusing had Courtney not been arguing with the most immature 16-year-old on the planet.

He snorted and started clapping for her sarcastically, in time with each of his steps. "Congratulations on your use of teenage slang, Princess! I hate to inform you though, you used the word wrong."

_Incorrectly, _she mentally corrected. Then, due to Duncan daring to correct _her_, the valedictorian of her class, her expression dropped into a scowl, and she stuck a hand on her hip.

"The word 'whore' only applies to girls," he continued. "It's like 'slut', or 'ho'."

"Oh, good, then the term's still relevant to you!" she shot back. Courtney was aware that this was fairly weak as far as comebacks went, but it was a simple enough insult, one that she'd seen annoy guys time and time again. Being called a girl just didn't rest well with any of them.

Duncan picked up his walk slightly, but he showed no other signs of being bothered by the remark. "Ooh, that really hurts. Really it does." He slapped a hand sarcastically against his heart. "Where'd you learn your insults, a textbook?"

"No comment," Courtney deadpanned, knowing that Duncan would twist around any response she gave to that question, and then they'd show it on television out of context, and then Chris would get a kick out of making her look bad. Unacceptable.

"You realize that means I win, right?" Duncan joked, surprised that she'd let it go so quickly. That wasn't like the Courtney he'd come to know at all. Of course, she probably had some reason for surrendering and a suitable insult to accompany it...

"Oh, yeah," she started, a rant on the horizon. "I'm really crushed that I'm not totally up on my knowledge of vulgar, degrading, sexist slang!" The Princess didn't disappoint. "You can have this one. Be my guest." She'd intended to spit that last sentence out with heavy venom, but it came out sounding more like a peace offering.

Duncan, sensing progress, decided to let conversation drop. The pair walked on in silence for a while, the trees beginning to thin out and the sounds of civilization growing in volume.

"Duncan?" Courtney asked, breaking through the quiet.

"The Princess deems me suitable to speak to?" he asked in mock surprise. His eyes widened and his mouth made an O, another expression that Courtney never thought she'd see on his face. The surprised look didn't really work for him, she decided; no wonder he always looked bored instead.

She snorted and pushed at his head with her hand. "No, not in the slightest, but you're the only one here." Duncan? He was definitely _not_ suitable for speaking to, yet there they were, speaking. Adopting a tone of formal disinterest, Courtney asked, "But, purely so I can better cuss you out in the safety of my own head, I want to know, what do _you_ suggest I call males if the sexist names don't work?"

"If I answer you, do you plan on calling me any of the names?"

"If I answer _you_, will you still give me legitimate answers?"

"No, probably not." The smirk was back, and, unable to restrain herself, Courtney elbowed him in his side, provoking him to smack the back of her head. She stomped on his foot again. "Princess, that really needs to stop. BUT, if you swear to remember this day, where I knew more than you do—" Courtney rolled his eyes at this, neither confirming nor denying the statement. "—you can call guys man-whores, jack-asses, jerks, assholes, jag-offs... your hero, love, knight-in-shining-armor, stud-muffin, _ouch!_" She nailed him in the foot again, so he elbowed her in the ribs.

"Look, I think we've established that my foot is never going to be the same after today, okay?" he told her good-naturedly. Courtney laughed, so he proceeded to smack the back of her head for a third time. "You should really be talking to Leshawna about this, anyway. I'll bet she's got a huge stock of vulgar, degrading, sexist names for guys stored up in that head."

"No, you probably covered all of the _good_ ones," Courtney contradicted, stressing the word 'good' in a way that implied she didn't think the names were very good at all. "You're a _man_-whore for hitting on me all of the time, though," she said, her face a strange mix between kidding and being entirely serious.

"Wrong again, Princess," he said, careful to match her straight face.

"God, what now?"

Duncan pushed a branch out of the way, which momentarily cleared the view of the rest of campers. It looked like everyone else was there, and several of the Gophers were covered in paint.

Courtney decided to ignore the fact that Duncan had been right about the meeting place's whereabouts and didn't mention it. One victory for him was plenty enough for the day, she figured.

"I may be a jack-ass, jerk, asshole, and a jag-off," Duncan began matter-of-factly, his expression containing no hints of shame. Courtney nodded her head at each of the titles, thrown a bit off balance by how easily he admitted such things about himself. "But I am _not_ a man-whore. If I were, I'd be hitting on every girl at camp. I've only got my eye on _one_." The pair emerged from the woods at this point, coming at Chris and the rest of the crew from behind. Duncan flashed the girl next to him a crooked grin before saying, "Yeah... Heather's _really_ hot."

Scoffing, Courtney pushed herself away from him, nearly pulling off both sets of antlers in the process. "You. Are. A. Jackass!" she accused irately, already fiddling with the antlers in an attempt to free herself. How dare he deny his man-whore-ishness? He had basically admitted that he'd hit on Heather and herself, as well as who knows who else!

The little voice in the back of Courtney's head tried to make her listen to reason, to tell her that she shouldn't be alerting the entire camp of the pair's dysfunctional relationship, but she ignored it, deciding that it would be easier to stay fuming. She would save deciphering Duncan's confession for another day.

"And you're in denial, Darling," Duncan shot back, oblivious to her internal struggle. "You can't resist me!" He waggled his eyebrow at her once more before they entered the circle containing their fellow campers. The light in his eyes quickly faded, his annoyed smirk falling back over his features, too quickly for anyone to catch his previous expression.

"Oh, this is just too much," Gwen said as the pair grunted to a halt. Everyone was gawking at them, most laughing, a few close friends looking concerned for both of their sanities.

"Duncan, you sly dog, you!" Owen chortled. Courtney glared at the maple-leaf adorning boy.

Duncan remembered Courtney's earlier threat regarding the safety of his nuts, but he figured that whatever punishment he got would be worth it for announcing, "The girl can't keep her antlers off me!" After all, it wasn't like she'd kick him in front of everyo—

"Can't... even... bend... over!" Duncan's voice reached an embarrassingly high squeak as Bridgette and Geoff finally unhooked their antlers. _How did they get them apart so easily?_ he wondered, falling to his knees.

"Easy, Courtney!" Chris admonished in his skater drawl. "Our medical tent's really only equipped for one at a time, and Cody's pretty messed up." He gestured at an unrecognizable person sitting in a wheel-chair, who Courtney assumed to be Cody, though you couldn't tell through all the binding.

_Whatever,_ she thought, looking at Duncan, crumpled on the ground. _The pig deserved it._ Her anger dissipated quickly, though, as Chris announced that the Killer Bass had won the Paintball Deer Hunt; Courtney joined in the team's whooping and shouting. The Gophers stood to the side, dejectedly dripping paint, and Courtney noticed that Heather looked prepared to murder someone. She gave a mental shrug and glanced down at Duncan and his attempt to cheer from the ground, a smile making its way onto her face.

His smirk was back (what would it take to get rid of it? She had kicked him in the balls, for God's sake!), and he struggled to stand up, winking at her before turning away. Rolling her eyes, Courtney quickly glanced around to assure that no one was watching before she stuck her tongue out at his back (childish, she knew, but it felt good to be passive-aggressive) and turned on her heel.

"You just stuck your tongue out at me, didn't you Princess?" he called over his shoulder.

Courtney didn't slow her pace, but turned around enough to shout, "Absolutely not!"

The two spun back around to return to their friends, Duncan with Geoff and DJ, Courtney talking with Bridgette. As they walked off in opposite directions, neither was aware that the other was smiling.

Big thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! After about a year of letting this chapter sit here—it was my first fanfiction of all time and therefore pretty darn awful—I revisited and revamped it, so hopefully it's better than when first released. I like to think it is, anyway…

Thanks for reading! Please review. (:


	3. A Misguided Mission

Hello again, everyone! Sorry it's been a while since the last update. I _could_ make a whole bunch of excuses for the time gap right now... but you all know how it goes. I'll leave it at that.

Your background info for this Fill-In-The-Blank: This follows Leshawna during Search And Do Not Destroy while she's spreading her Trent/Heather rumor for Gwen. It should be fairly easy to follow.

**Disclaimer**: Total Drama Island, Leshawna and the gang, and Camp Wawanakwa all aren't mine.

* * *

"Heather is so off this island!" Leshawna shouted to no one in particular. She was too busy planning a course of action as she raged away from the Gopher cabin. After the tear-filled conversation she'd just had with Gwen, Leshawna was ready to do her part to destroy Heather—once and for all.

Her hands moved to push up the sleeves of her shirt (that being one of her angry habits), but she winced as they met nothing but shallow cuts and torn fabric. "Stupid crocodiles," she muttered, pulling to a stop mid-march. Annoyed that her mission had been deterred, she held her arms out in front of her to survey the damage.

_Damn, _she thought, _that is NOT good. _Her arms were caked with dirt and the remains of dried-up lake water, her shorts shredded, the water in her sandals making squishing and squashing noises with each step she took. She touched a hand to her head to examine the damage done to her hair, and a horrified expression made its way over her features.

The expression must have been incredibly comical, because an amused snort snapped Leshawna out of her thoughts. She whirled around to face the source of the noise, expecting to find the snarky cameraman who was generally stationed outside of her cabin, but found herself face to face with the camp's insane redhead instead.

"Whoa, Leshawna!" Izzy called, recovering from the jump she had just taken out of a tree. "You look totally messed up! Like you got attacked by one of those rare South American rhinoceroses or something!"

Unsure of whether to be insulted or not, Leshawna settled on pointing out that rhinoceroses don't live on the South American continent.

"Oh," Izzy said, "You wouldn't think so. But that's why they're _rare_, see? My Grandpa's the only person who's ever survived seeing one! He told me all about it." Izzy spontaneously switched into story mode and began acting out her words. "He was trying to find the continent between Africa and South America—" She mimed being a sailor, "—when he stumbled upon the giant creature. It attacked him!" She yelled and pounced at her imaginary Grandpa, hands shaped like claws. Even though rhinoceroses don't have claws…

"But then," she continued, "When all hope for capture seemed lost, he used his titanium tent poles, water bottles, and an avocado to slay the beast!" Izzy appeared to be miming a complex procedure involving those three items, eventually diving into a victorious pose.

Rebounding back off of the ground, she faced Leshawna again. "So then, when he escaped, he was all scratched up and stuff, just like you! And then the Guatemalan police locked him up in jail for the illegal poaching of an endangered species…" She sighed happily, as if she'd just finished reliving one of her finest moments. "But Grandpa's free now. He still hasn't found South-east Amafrica, though." She shrugged.

Then, without warning: "Anyway, I'll see you later!" She turned on her heel and ran off in the same way that she'd acted out the part of the rhinoceros. The saner of the two girls (Leshawna, of course) stared after the substantially less-sane one until she hurtled behind the mess hall and out of sight.

Leshawna shook her head quickly and looked to the snarky camera guy. She threw her hands up angrily and hollered, "I didn't just imagine that whole thing, did I?" The intern blinked out of his thoughts and slowly shook his head. Leshawna hoped the guy had been too shocked to capture any of that last exchange on film.

_-=-_

After deciding to clean herself up, mainly for the purpose of avoiding any more encounters like that of which she'd had with Izzy, Leshawna charged back into her cabin. She grabbed a change of clothes out of the bag under her bunk, along with some medical ointment she'd been smart enough to pack, and went to head back out the door.

"Leaving so soon?" Gwen sniffed and offered her friend a weak smile.

Loaded down with the means by which she'd erase all evidence of the crocodiles, Leshawna turned to face the bunk Gwen was still huddled on. "Sorry, girl," she said. "But this story isn't gonna spread itself, and I've gotta get cleaned up before I start digging Heather's grave." Hands too full to wave to the depressed, let alone open the door, Leshawna used her shoulder to nudge it open. She sprinted back down the steps, leaving Gwen alone to wonder if her friend had been serious about Heather's grave or not.

A minute later, Leshawna pushed through the door of the washrooms and dumped all that she'd been carrying onto the counter. She took the time to change her clothes and to fix up her hair, doing the best she could to cover up her scratches—only a few of her beauty products had survived her stay at Camp Wawanakwa. After ten minutes of intense damage control and repair, she looked at her reflection with satisfaction. "Not bad, Shawny, not bad!" she congratulated herself.

Deciding that the washrooms were as good a place to start looking for campers as anywhere, she walked down the length of stalls, peering into each. Leshawna would have passed them all, seeing that they were empty, but stopped to inspect the last stall; her peripheral vision had caught a glint of faded blue. Pushing the door wider, she saw Geoff's lucky cowboy hat sitting forlornly on the floor next to the toilet. The hat looked rather strange without a blonde head to sit on.

"Yo, Geoff!" Leshawna called, looking around. "You in here?" She didn't know where to expect the answer to come from, but she wouldn't be leaving without one.

"Whoa, Leshawna, s'that you?" Geoff's voice echoed through the washrooms as if it were coming from _…the toilet?_ Leshawna cautiously stepped around his hat and looked into the bowl, hoping that Geoff was not where she believed him to be.

She answered his question and then asked her own. "Leshawna, the one and only! …You can hear me?"

"Loud and clear, dudette!" Geoff responded. Leshawna could picture him punching his fist in the air, had he not been in the septic tank; she had chosen to assume he _was_ in fact in there, not wanting to actually ask the question.

"If you say so." She took a breath of clean air before giving the toilet the sentence that she'd been rehearsing in her head. "Anyway." Three, two, one. "We need you in the alliance so we can vote off Heather. She's playin' around with Gwen's boy, Trent!"

A loud, metallic 'Thunk!' resounded from the septic tank along with an 'Oh, dude, ouch!' There was a short silence while Geoff took a moment to recover. Leshawna was just beginning to become impatient when he said, "Trent and Heather? No way! Where'd you hear that?"

She crossed her arms and cut the conversation short, saying, "Geoff, you're gonna have to either come out of there to get the low-down or just trust me on this one, 'cause I feel really stupid talking to a toilet."

"But I don't have my key yet!" Geoff protested, a round of thunking resulting from his efforts to get out of the filth. "Leshawna? Leshawna!" A second later, his blond, hat-free head popped out of the plumbing and glanced around the stall.

Leshawna was already gone.

_-=-_

After finding the cabins and mess hall empty, with the exception of Gwen, Leshawna went to search through the woods. She hated them, no doubt, but she'd been forced through enough times to know her way around. Keeping up with her position on a mental map, she jogged through the trees, occasionally calling out something to make her presence known.

After about an hour, nearly ready to give up on the woods and hit the mountain, Leshawna leaned against a tree and thought about where everyone would be. She was almost certain that DJ had picked out a tablet with a picture of a tree on it…but everyone had run off so quickly after Chris set them loose that she couldn't be sure. She sighed and pushed herself up off the tree and started walking back to camp.

She cupped her hands to her mouth on the way and yelled, "DJ! Deeee-jaaaay! You've got to be in these woods somewhere!"

"Leshawna?" DJ's voice squeaked from above her. "What are you—eek!—doing up in here?" The girl tipped her head back and spun in a quick circle to spot DJ's bulky figure, which wasn't too difficult. He clung to a large tree's branch for dear life, his key hanging a sad half meter away. It was an unnatural sight, a big jock hugging a branch and attempting not to break into hysterics.

But, too tired to entertain niceties, Leshawna walked to the base of DJ's tree and shouted her phrase: "We need you in the alliance so we can vote off Heather. She's playin' around with Gwen's boy, Trent!" And that was that.

"Eeeeeeeeeek!" A snap, crackle, and pop later left DJ blinking on the forest floor, still strangling his branch. _At least he'll be able to get his key now, _Leshawna reasoned.

She shook her head and raised her eyebrows. She didn't worry for DJ; he was big, and he could take a fall. Having wasted enough time in the forest, Leshawna set out to find Bridgette. She'd probably be on the mountain somewhere, or maybe by the beach… Leshawna had hiked a little way from DJ's broken tree when he called out to her.

"Oh, so what, you're just gonna leave a brother hangin'?" he asked. "Now that's just cold."

Leshawna turned back around to face the recently fallen. She watched DJ struggle to pull his key around the thick branch and took a few steps back to him. "Aw, Deej, you're fine," she said, waving an arm in his direction. "And I've got bigger fish to fry."

"Yeah, yeah," DJ joked, still yanking on his key. Leshawna was just turning to leave when he shouted, "OH NO!"

"What?!" she called back. She jogged back to his branch and stood over his kneeling figure. A moment later he popped up, a small squirrel curled up in his hands.

He scratched the little thing under its chin and adopted a fatherly tone of voice. "I just destroyed your home, didn't I, little guy? Didn't I? I'm sorry, oh yes I am!" He smiled at the creature fondly and continued his loving murmuring.

Leshawna stuck her hands on her hips. "_This _is what your 'Oh no' was for? A squirrel? Hon, that's barely worth a 'Shoot'." She shook her head and spun back around. It was time to find someone else.

_-=-_

After finding her way out of the forest, Leshawna figured it would be a good idea to pass by the cabins before heading up the mountain. Following a bout of hardcore (for her, anyway) running, the trees parted to reveal the Bass cabin, which included Duncan sitting carelessly on the steps. Leshawna, still a good hundred meters away from him, but too tired to do any more running, rested her hands on her knees and panted for a moment.

Because of her breathing, which didn't look like it would be getting steady anytime soon, she called out to the delinquent instead of closing the space between them. "Yo—" gasp, "—Duncan!" she yelled, waving at him with one hand. "Come 'ere!"

He raised his head slowly and glanced around before spotting Leshawna's figure off to his left. Leshawna couldn't exactly tell from such a distance, but she would have guessed he'd cocked his eyebrow in a 'why should I go over there?' sort of way. "How about 'no'?" he called back, not making any move to get up. His key spun idly around his finger.

Leshawna's breath began returning to her, and just in time; she felt a confrontation coming on. "How 'bout 'Get your skinny white self over here before I hurt you'?" she shot back.

"How about 'I'd like to see you try?'!" Duncan's unconcealed smirk, visible even from such a distance, was enough to get Leshawna running again. Duncan folded his hands behind his head and leaned back as she approached, fuming. He didn't look at all worried, and even went far enough to jab, "Well, that took you long enough."

It probably doesn't need to be said that Leshawna wasn't the fastest sprinter.

Her hands balled up into fists, and she had to fight the instinct to rip that boy to shreds for arrogance. Voice aggravated, she said, "You know what, save the jokes about my physical fitness another day." She pointed to herself, saying, "I have something that I've got to tell you."

"Well, obviously," Duncan retorted. "Why else would you be _wasting my time_?" He fiddled with his pocket-knife, his face revealing no curiosity at Leshawna's she'd had the time to think about it, she would have wondered if he'd recently gotten Botoxed. But she didn't have that time.

"Ooooh, you are about to ge—" Leshawna cut herself off. She needed Duncan's vote no matter how much his attitude irritated her. "Okay, look. We need you in the alliance so we can vote off Heather. She's playin' around with Gwen's boy, Trent."

Duncan looked up at this and seemed to take the time to consider his next words. "I'll just tell you this now," he said after a moment. "I have absolutely no problem with voting off Heather." He paused to narrow his eyes, and then continued. "But the Bob Marley wannabe and Gwen? That's not my problem. Don't tell Gwen to expect any sympathy from me."

Gwen's closest friend was about to backhand the lightweight lounging in front of her when she came up with a better idea. A plan to teach that specific lightweight a small lesson in hypocrisy.

She started walking away without another word, but paused as if she'd just remembered something of minor importance. "Ooh, Duncan? I forgot to tell you."

He folded his arms and rolled his eyes. "Just spit it out."

She harrumphed, and then informed him, "You're just lucky I'm telling you this at all." Duncan didn't look like he thought he was very lucky.

Leshawna then continued on. "Before Justin left, I caught him making out with Courtney. After the talent show. I though you should know." Leshawna turned around to walk away and waited for him to take the bait. Three, two…

Duncan's hand yanked her around by the shoulder to face him, face furious. "You'd better tell me _exactly _what you're talking about or else you will be _extremely _sorry." There was murder in his eyes.

Leshawna smiled in satisfaction, her point proven perfectly. "Exactly." Just one little mention of his girlfriend with someone else had made the boy absolutely furious! She smiled and waited for Duncan to absorb what she'd just pulled on him.

He gathered himself to a minimal degree and asked, though it sounded more like a threat, "WHAT are you talking about?" He looked pretty menacing, Leshawna had to admit, but she'd seen scarier. Little white boys don't scare you when you've grown up in the hood.

Slowly comprehending the significance of his own reaction, Duncan sat back down on the steps breathing hard.

Leshawna walked up to him and leaned down to whisper, "I think you understand why you should give Gwen some 'sympathy' now." She strutted away in triumph while Duncan scowled at her back.

That fool could be as vicious as he wanted, but he had it _bad _for Courtney. Leshawna smiled to herself and stored this information away as ammunition for later use. She had a feeling that she'd be able to bring Courtney up against Duncan again before their time at camp was over. She also had a feeling that Courtney would completely approve.

_-=-_

Feeling satisfied after her encounter with Duncan, Leshawna headed towards Camp Wawanakwa's great mountain to find Bridgette, and Owen if he was up there. She hadn't seen either of them since they'd picked out their key's location, so where else would they be?

After a few minutes, Leshawna found herself standing at the base of the incline, staring in the direction of its peak. "This isn't going to be fun," Leshawna decided, saying it aloud. But she had to make the climb for Gwen; Leshawna didn't break her promises, and telling absolutely _everyone _was the only way to send either Heather or Trent (preferably Heather) home. Leshawna sighed and started to walk.

Not too much later, Leshawna stopped, throwing her arms out to the side. "Okay," she said to no one in particular. "There's got to be a faster way than this!" Not even halfway up the mountain, she was already covered in sweat, and her legs hurt! She would keep going if she really had to—she had been through worse before—but there had to be an easier way. Marching all the way up and then all the way back down seemed like too much work.

Leshawna sank down onto a relatively flat rock and thought for a moment. Chris probably knew exactly where Bridgette was right now. He was probably laughing at her efforts to find her, too. Leshawna's lips pursed at the thought of the host, when an idea struck her. "The cameras!" Her eyes lit up and she stood, running to find one.

The cameras, she figured, had the best view of each area of the island; Chris, the cheapskate, would want maximum area coverage from each one. Leshawna jogged a small distance up the mountain before she spotted one of the cheap machines up in a tree. "Yes!" She ran to the base of the trunk and looked up into the lens. "What now, Chris, what now? You're not the only one who can get use out of your cameras!" She began climbing the tree without hesitation, silently thanking her greasy old gym teacher for making her climb that cursed rope.

Once she'd pulled herself over several branches, she situated herself in a sitting position on a branch above the camera. Rubbing her hands on her pants to get the bark off, she took a minute to rest and listened for any signs of movement. Not even five minutes later, she heard the type of leaf crunching that only results from human footsteps. Congratulating herself on having chosen such a strategic vantage point, she pushed a few leaves aside and peered down to the ground. _Bridgette! _

The girl was walking up to a little rabbit sitting next to a key. Leshawna was momentarily annoyed, (she'd had to fight off two crocodiles, and all Bridgette got was a bunny? Now _that_ was unfair) but the bunny then growled, revealing a set of deadly sharp teeth and the possibility of rabies. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Bridgette shrieked and scrambled up the same tree that Leshawna was occupying, eventually clinging to the trunk one branch below Leshawna.

Leshawna leaned down and delivered her phrase to the girl in a whisper, trying not to startle her—that freaky rabbit was downright creepy. "We need you in the alliance so we can vote off Heather. She's playin' around with Gwen's boy, Trent," she said quietly, but with the same amount of urgency as with all of the others.

Bridgette screamed again, but collected herself quickly. She looked ready to speak, but was interrupted by Chris's voice blaring out of a loudspeaker. "All right, campers! Meet me at the campfire in ten! And bring your keys." The girls sat for a moment before Bridgette spoke.

"Leshawna?" she said, straddling the branch to get a better view of her friend. "What are you doing here?"

"Girl, I was trying to find you," she told her. "And maybe Owen. But I'm not too worried about him."

The girls eased themselves down from the tree and headed back in the direction of camp. They chatted on the way back, Leshawna taking the time to explain the entire Heather/Trent situation to Bridgette. The blonde, being the first-class listener that she was, waited through the whole story, a concerned look making its way over her features. Leshawna finished up with, "So that's that! I've been tellin' everyone about those two. Heather has GOT to go." She jerked a finger over her shoulder.

Bridgette shook her head sadly as she walked and looked down at the passing ground. "Poor Gwen," she started. "I really didn't think Trent was the type of guy who would do something like that. I mean, I'm not surprised that Heather was involved, but I thought that Trent was…" She let the sentence drop off, and the girls walked in silence for a moment. "Well," she said eventually, ever the optimistic one. "It looks like you're taking care of it." She shrugged and smiled. "I'm sure things will work out."

"You bet they'll work out!" Leshawna responded. "I went and found everyone who would listen to me, except for Owen. And he won't be a problem." A few more steps and they were left at the edge of the campfire pit area.

Bridgette looked to her friend beside her. "Why won't Owen be a problem?" she asked.

"Oh please, girl, Heather's not the only one who can use bribery to win that boy over. And I've got pudding cups!" The girls laughed together, and Leshawna held her hand out for a high-five that Bridgette was glad to return.

Leshawna smiled to herself as she found a place among the other campers. Phase one of Mission Destroy-Heather was complete! All that was left to do by that point was wait. And maybe go visit the Confession Cam.

* * *

I hope you all liked it! I really like Leshawna as a character; I hope I portrayed her correctly.

And does it take serious skill to work a DxC moment into a story where the C isn't even there? I think it does. Or maybe that's just my unhealthy obsession talking. XD

Requests? Comments? Complaints? Please review or PM me and let me know!


	4. Keeping Conscious

Okay! So, you guys obviously didn't enjoy that last chapter so much…honestly, I can't say that I blame you. **:-/** I think I gave myself too many dots and not enough space to connect them in, if you will. But I promise, this chapter is much better. Review and confirm my thoughts when you're finished? I would appreciate it more than Courtney would appreciate Duncan leaving her alone. **:-D**

I've gotten several requests for The Big Sleep, so here it is! This fic only focuses on the Bass, but if anyone out there wants something Gopher-tastic, hit up my profile and PM me! Specific thanks to ForbidenFaerie and TDIATGirl1301 for the idea, along with some others who wish to remain anonymous **:)**

And P.S: This is the longest one yet, so you might want to hunker down with, say, your _bed_ in case you fall asleep trying to finish it! Hopefully it'll be more interesting than that…but no one's a good judge of their own work. -Smiles-

**Disclaimer:** I think we all know what I'm going to write here.

* * *

"Gooooood morning, campers!" Chris called happily as he approached the group of groggy teens. His hair was perfectly windswept, shirt perfectly ironed and perfectly crispy, smile perfectly whitened—in short, he looked rested. Not only rested, but pampered as only a TV host could be. He glanced around at the bodies sprawled out all over the area, watching for any response to his wake-up call.

No one stirred.

Upon deciding that this lack of reaction was unacceptable, Chris scampered up to the spot where the most teens were lying, held up his favorite red megaphone, and yelled, "You've all reached the 29 hour mark! So wakey-wakey!"

A chorus of groans and protests came from both teams as the few who had fallen asleep woke up and the ones who had managed to stay conscious guarded their ears against the unwelcome noise. The sun was just beginning to rise over the treetops, silhouetting the camp's outline, and a slight shadow fell over the dusty bonfire grounds. It couldn't have been later than six or seven in the morning.

Chris walked around in a slow circle, examining the contestants with a scheming, television-worthy smile pasted onto his face.

Tyler rocked himself on his tree stump until he had gathered enough momentum to stand, and then stretched his arms out over his head.

Harold had worked himself into a pose that resembled something a person saw in yoga advertisements and had begun chanting, "Ohmmmmm…ohmmmmm…"

Eva jogged in place and snarled at anyone who dared to look her in the eye.

Duncan drew a skull and crossbones in the dirt where he lay spread out on the ground, Geoff next to him.

Katie and Sadie would whisper for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

Bridgette lay sound asleep while Courtney stared at her disappointedly, tugging at the cuffs of her sleeves.

DJ was nowhere to be seen. Chris shrugged; he'd turn up sometime.

Glancing around at the state of her fellow teammates, Courtney detached herself from the group and approached the smiling host separately. She rubbed her eyes quickly and smoothed out her shirt, doing the best she could to look presentable, and then moved to stand in front of him. The host faced her expectantly.

"Chris, can I have a second?" She proceeded on without waiting for an answer. "My team and I were talking last night, and we've decided that this whole challenge is completely unreasonable. 29 hours is more than a day without sleep, and we're not even done yet." She stabbed a finger into her palm for emphasis. "This is literal torture on the basis of sleep deprivation." She twined her fingers together as she finished making her appeal and stared at the man standing in front of her. Chris smiled back blankly and blinked a few times.

"Well?" she prompted, waving him along with her hands.

"Well what?" Chris asked through his megaphone, a grating screech coming from the machine.

The Bass spokesperson winced at the noise, but didn't dare ask him to part with his beloved apparatus. "Well…" she said, trying to come up with a valid substitute for their situation. She hadn't anticipated _total _indifference when she had been talking this over with her team last night. "Won't you do something about it?"

Chris shook his head and raised the megaphone once more. "I'm afraid not, Courtney! You see, we're already nearly two days into the challenge! To stop now would totally throw off the whole schedule!"

The girl he spoke to glared, but refused to fight with authority. She sighed and walked back to where the Bass were stationed and surveyed the crowd. The only person who she would really enjoy sitting with, Bridgette, had managed to sleep through Chris's wake-up call. Courtney walked over to where she lay and gingerly sat down next to her, still glaring at Chris, muttering under her breath; the words 'sadist' and 'narcissistic' could be heard.

-

Geoff, having successfully risen from his half-asleep, half-awake state, began walking in Chris's direction after that, Duncan following a meter or two behind. The look on the latter's face said, 'I could be leading if I wanted to—I just don't feel like it.' It was probably true.

"Chris, man, what time is it?" Geoff asked as Duncan came to stand beside him.

"SIX A.M!"

Without a word, Duncan snatched Chris's megaphone, extended his arm up over his head, and threw the megaphone into the dirt with enough force to shatter a window. It clattered to the ground as the trio stared at it, rolled around on its end, and then settled a few meters away. Duncan looked up at the host as it stopped revolving and shot him a fierce look, daring him to retrieve his item.

Chris's smile didn't falter, but he didn't move to pick up his megaphone either.

"So tell me," Duncan said through clenched teeth, "What made you wake us up at the ungodly hour of six in the morning to tell us that it's been _29_ hours?"

"That _is_ pretty random, dude," Geoff declared, nodding in agreement with Duncan. "Like, it's not a day, and it's not a day and a half. 29's just sort of hanging there." He watched Chris intently.

"Oh, that!" the host responded. "Well, ya see, the network said that I wasn't allowed to bother you guys before six. Some rule about 'child protection' or something," he said, making quote marks. "Believe me, I would've woken you up _way_ earlier than this. But that would've lost me my paycheck!" He nudged Duncan as a friend would.

"Don't. Touch. Me."

"Sheesh," Chris said, stepping away from the boys, one cheerful and one brooding. "Don't have a fit, dude." He held up his hands in mock surrender and scurried over to his post behind the makeshift podium.

"ALL RIGHT, CAMPERS!" he said, addressing them all. He cupped his hands around his mouth and tried to get the attention of each. "You've had four minutes to get yourselves up and running. So hurry up and start talking or something, because you're boring right now!" He clapped his hands to say 'chop-chop' and then moved to go grill one of the cameramen.

Every conscious camper was ready to strangle the host.

_-=-_

About an hour later, nearly all of the teens had gotten moving. Bridgette, only recently roused by all the noise, looked around the grounds blearily. "Oh… gosh," she said after a defeated yawn. "Did I fall asleep?" She looked around for Courtney, but couldn't spot her.

Tyler, propped up on his left shin in order to stretch out his right hamstring, responded instead. "Yeah. You were out cold!" He stood to switch sides, got back down on the ground, and then leaned forward, trying to touch the tip of his tennis shoe. "Ouch!" he screamed, twisting over to fall on his side while clutching the back of his thigh.

"What?!" Bridgette asked, jerked into alertness.

"Aw, man," Tyler said, sitting again. In an attempt to look macho, he brushed it off saying, "It's nothing. I think I just pulled my hamstring a little there." He started massaging his leg, attempting to hide his pain.

"Right…" Bridgette gave him a sympathetic smile as she stood and stretched out her back. She gazed at the people around her, counting them all.

Katie and Sadie sat cross-legged together, gossiping.

Harold was practicing some form of martial arts. Or something like that.

Eva did bicep curls with two massive rocks that she must have found, all the while maintaining a steady jog in place.

Tyler was still trying to massage out the strain he'd put on his hamstring.

Bridgette's eyebrows furrowed in sleepy confusion. That was only six people, counting herself. Where had Geoff gone? And Courtney? She walked over to Katie and Sadie and squatted down to get level with them, deciding that those were the two she'd most like to talk to. "Hey, does either of you know where Courtney went? Or Geoff? I don't see them."

The pair looked up at her and then back to each other as if the answer would be found on the other's face. After a second, Katie looked back up and answered. "I think Courtney went to the bathroom."

"Oh my gosh!" Sadie exclaimed. "I was about to say that! Like, those _exact _words!"

"No way."

"Way!" They clapped together from excitement over the small discovery, causing several other campers to look up at them in annoyance.

Bridgette rolled her eyes at the look-alikes playfully, unmindful of the irritated looks being shot in her general direction. "And Geoff? And Duncan and DJ?" she reminded them.

"Umm…" Sadie started, seeming to give the question serious consideration. "I think Duncan and Geoff went to untie DJ from that tree he tied himself to last night. Like, before Chef did that whole ballet thing." She looked at Katie for confirmation, who nodded rapidly in response.

Bridgette nodded as well, accepting the explanation. After thanking them, she carefully hopped over the arms and legs of her peers, making her way back towards the washrooms to find Courtney and to get cleaned up after sleeping on the ground.

"Hey, Courtney!" she called, entering the rickety building. "You in here?"

Courtney looked up from the sink, yawning. "Oh, hi, Bridgette," she forced out in greeting.

Bridgette paused in the doorway and took a second to look at her. "Courtney," she said after a second. "You don't look so good." Bridgette walked up to her and began fixing her own ponytail in the mirror. "Are you okay?" It had only been a week together, but the two had become fast friends.

The brunette shook her head quickly to clear it and straightened up from bending over the sink. "I feel fine!" she affirmed a second later. Bridgette shot her a skeptical look. "Well, as fine as anyone could feel after missing two nights of sleep," Courtney amended sourly. She splashed her dark complexion with a bit of water and dried her face, Bridgette watching her in the mirror.

"All right," the blonde said after a second. "I'll buy that." She wet a paper towel and rubbed it over her arms to remove the majority of the dust. _It'll have to do for a shower,_ she realized sullenly. "So…who do you think will win the challenge?"

Courtney looked up. "Assuming that it's someone from our team?"

Bridgette nodded while her friend seemed to give the topic some consideration. "And assuming that it's not me?" she asked after a second. "But only because I keep on a tight sleeping schedule!"

Bridgette laughed at her friend's need to defend her position—_she_ hadn't even fallen asleep yet! "Sure."

"Well, originally, I would have thought that Geoff would be our best bet since he's such a 'partier'," she said sarcastically, "But he already looks rather comatose." Bridgette agreed. "I might say that Eva would win, but if she keeps exercising at the rate that she is, she's going to completely wear herself out." Bridgette suggested that they go ask Eva to slow it down, but Courtney didn't seem keen on approaching the girl. "DJ's already out, and Harold and Tyler are obviously hopeless," she said thoughtfully. "So, I guess that just leaves…ohhhhh, no."

"What?" Bridgette asked.

Courtney looked slightly horrified as she lifted her face out of her hands. "That means that our team's fate is lying with Katie and Sadie! God, this is a disaster."

Bridgette made a slight face, but managed to look at the situation optimistically. "Well, it might not be so bad," she said, mentally scanning through the rest of her team. "They probably go on a lot of sleepovers." She shrugged. "Wait!" Her mind fell to the green-haired delinquent on her team. "What about Duncan?"

Courtney's expression darkened as she violently wrung out a washcloth. "What about him?" she asked, though it sounded more like a statement.

"Well," Bridgette said, confused by the sudden change in Courtney's mood. "He might be able to win!"

"That boy," Courtney began acidly, "Is not capable of winning anything more than a detention sentence. I promise you, even _I'll_ be able to stay up longer than he will."

Bridgette gave a mental shrug and nodded. "What made you forget about him?" she asked with a small smile.

"I'm just tired, okay?" Courtney snapped. Then, seeming to regret her outburst, she said more softly, "He's not exactly on my list of highest priorities, you know."

-

The girls' chatter on the way back from the washrooms consisted mostly of complaints toward the challenge. When they neared the grounds again, Courtney brought up something she'd been considering. "I think it would be a good idea if we held a team meeting now," she announced.

Bridgette smiled, although she was a bit confused by this proposition. "Okay. What for?"

"We need to go over our strategy." The pair approached the rest of the campers and lowered themselves onto two stumps, glancing around at the other Bass gathered in the area. "Wait. Where is everyone?" Courtney didn't see the glowing green Mohawk she'd come to look for, or the cowboy hat, or the hulking Jamaican.

"Sadie said that they went to go untie DJ." Two heads—one blonde and one brunette—turned to regard the BFFs. They seemed to be playing some sort of game, or perhaps that was them laughing over past memories. It was difficult to tell.

Courtney propped her elbows on her knees and supported her chin in her hands while Bridgette rested back on her arms, which were stretched out behind her. "They'd better hurry up," Courtney stated, frowning in the direction of the woods. Bridgette merely shrugged and drew in the dirt with the toe of her sandal, settling in to wait.

_-=-_

"DJ, dude, what did you _do?_" Geoff asked his buddy. "This knot is, like, fully impossible!" Geoff squatted on the ground, tugging at the rope, while DJ remained parallel to the earth, tied to the fallen tree. Duncan stood behind Geoff, directing him occasionally.

"Hey, I don't know how I got it so tight!" DJ replied. "I was already half asleep! I'm telling you, it was all in Chef's magic fairy dust. That man has _powers_."

Duncan scoffed. "Magic fairy dust doesn't exist," he said firmly. "I bet it was just some lighting trick Chris rigged up to make us _think_ we'd get tired." He grabbed a branch off of the ground and began snapping it into halves. "He's trying to screw with our heads." Then, looking down at DJ on the ground, he added, "Apparently, it worked."

He dropped about six broken twig segments into the dirt.

"Hey, man, it's not my fault!" DJ protested. "I go to bed promptly at 9:45 every night, just like my Mama told me I should. This body's not designed to pull all-nighters!"

Duncan gave a slight smirk at the mention of DJ's 'Mama' but didn't pursue the subject. Then, seeing that Geoff was still struggling with DJ's knot, Duncan knelt down beside him. "All right, loser," he said jokingly, pushing him out of the way. "Let me do it."

"All right, man," Geoff said, scooting over. "But Deej got himself really stuck there." Geoff slapped DJ on the back. "I dunno how much luck you'll have."

Duncan snorted and flipped out his pocket-knife. "Luck is for suckers." He addressed DJ: "Don't move." DJ let out a little yelp at the sight of the knife, but did as Duncan instructed. After a few moments of sawing, the rope fell open and DJ rolled out onto the ground.

Duncan straightened up next to Geoff, and the two gazed down at their companion. He lay on the ground, staring up at the canopy of trees, not moving.

After Geoff and Duncan exchanged glances, Geoff snapped his fingers in his pal's face. "DJ, dude, you in there?" He leaned down to wave his hand over DJ's eyes, and then twisted back around to look at Duncan. "I think we killed him, man."

Duncan cracked a smile. "Yeah, guess so." He took another look at the boy on the forest floor, made his analysis (that faker!), and then looked back at Geoff. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go." He started tramping back towards camp, sticks cracking under his Converses.

"Wait, dude, what abou—"

Duncan held up a hand to shush him, shooting him a crafty look. Geoff's eyes filled with comprehension.

_Ohhhhhhh, _he mouthed, walking away as well. DJ was playing dead! "Uh, yeah, Duncan, I'm ready to go back to camp!" he said over-theatrically. "Without DJ! …Because he died." He winked at the delinquent, now several meters in front of him. Duncan rolled his eyes at his bad acting.

DJ jerked up and looked around, causing Geoff and Duncan to each dart behind the nearest tree. "Guys?... Guys! Where'd you go?!" DJ hopped up and looked around frantically; that forest was creepy, even if you _were _on the edge of it!

At Duncan's signal, Geoff hopped out from behind his tree—"Dude, you're alive!"—while Duncan revealed himself saying, "You are _way_ too gullible, man."

DJ jumped back and put a hand to his heart. "Aw, NOT cool! You should know to never scare a brother like that!"

Geoff pounded fists with Duncan, who had walked back to join them. "Hey," the prankster said. "You're the one who was playing dead."

DJ made a face, but cleared it quickly. "All right, true that." DJ's back was covered in dry bark, and a few crinkled leaves clung to him. "So, you guys ready to head back?" Three heads—one blonde, one dark, one green—turned to regard the camp.

"Why not?" Duncan asked sardonically, recommencing his march in that direction. DJ and Geoff chattered behind, laughing at the joke they'd just pulled on each other. But Duncan? He wanted someone to bother.

_-=-_

"Finally!" Courtney exclaimed as she saw the three boys approaching. She and Bridgette had gathered the remainder of the Bass team together in a circle for their meeting, but she knew that they wouldn't wait there much longer; Eva already looked ready the throttle someone, and Tyler's concentration kept wandering over to the Gophers.

"Get over here!" Courtney commanded, while Bridgette motioned to the trio with her hand. Upon noticing the circular formation, the boys chose places: Geoff sat between Bridgette and Katie (who was, predictably, sitting next to Sadie), DJ sat on the open side of Sadie, and Duncan pushed between Eva and Courtney. Courtney eyed him crossly; she'd purposely sat next to Eva to keep her from having another fit! And Duncan was certainly not included in her first pick of friends, either.

Quickly counting the members in the circle and concluding to have the full ten, Courtney cleared her throat and began. "Okay, everyone? In light of our situation—" she glanced at Katie and Sadie, "—I think it's time we figured out the best strategy for staying awake and maximizing our chances for success." She looked around expectantly.

Duncan responded. "What kind of strategy could we possibly need?" he asked jeeringly. "It's just staying awake. I don't think that even _you_ can come with a strategy for that." He picked up a stray stick and jabbed it at her.

Courtney grabbed his stick and tossed it to the ground, but ignored him statement. "Well, it's _obviously_ not quite that simple," she began, "Since we already have two people out." She gestured to Bridgette and DJ, who quickly found something to examine on the ground. "The Gophers are ahead of us now. Any ideas?" She adjusted herself so that she was facing away from Duncan and looked out at her team.

Katie and Sadie raised their hands, classroom style. Courtney's eyebrows raised faintly in surprise, but she quickly accepted her role as teacher. "Yes, Katie and Sadie."

The two girls beamed. Sadie turned to Katie. "Katie, why don't you start?"

"Oh, no," Katie declined. "I started last time. You go."

"But it was totally your idea! I think you should."

"Naw, go ahead. It's no biggie."

Courtney eyed them with frustration. She cleared her throat and chose a speaker herself. "Sadie, why don't you start?"

Sadie looked up and shrugged. "Oh, okay." She looked at Katie before continuing. "So, when me and Katie have sleepovers, we like, never actually sleep. We just stay up the whole night talking! And sometimes we go on the computer. But it's mostly talking. So, we really think that will help!" Courtney watched them for a moment longer, Katie congratulating Sadie on her excellent delivery.

Bridgette, figuring that Courtney was about to completely discard all that the girls had just said, cut in. "All right, so, everyone heard that, right? Talking helps you stay awake. So, if you feel yourself starting to drift, um, find someone to…talk to?" She looked at Courtney, who shrugged in a 'good enough' way. "Thanks Sadie, Katie, I'm sure that will be really helpful."

Courtney leaned over to her right and whispered to Bridgette. "You do realize that the whole computer thing is completely irrelevant right now, don't you?"

Bridgette nodded. "But I was right about the sleepover thing," she pointed out.

Courtney acknowledged that fact with a quick bob of her head. "Okay," she resumed. "Any other ideas?"

Harold raised his hand.

"Yes, Harold."

"I think we should, like, amend that last statement," he wheezed. "It wouldn't be very advantageous of us to converse with the other team because, like, that's keeping them alert too and all. We need to stay within the limits of our own, like… team."

"Dude's got a point there," DJ said from next to him, holding out a single finger.

"Wait!" Several heads looked around, trying to locate the owner of the cry. Tyler saved them the trouble by continuing: "What if I wanna talk to someone on the other team?"

"Like I said," Harold began. "That wouldn't be very advantageous."

Geoff, sensing the possibility of a romantic interest, turned to Tyler. "Who do you want to talk to on the other team, man?" he asked with a growing smile.

Tyler, noticing his gaffe too late, clumsily attempted to cover. "No one! I don't want to talk to anyone over there! What are you talking about?"

"You _definitely_ said that you want to talk to someone over there," Duncan pointed out, gesturing to the other team. "Cut the bull." All eyes rested on Tyler.

"No one!" he whined, shying away from their gazes. "I don't want to talk to anyone!" He fidgeted with his headband. Perhaps he was sweating a bit more than usual?

Sadie whispered to Katie, who then perked up and announced, "I think Tyler likes that Lindsay girl!" The duo pointed in the blonde's direction.

The expression on Tyler's face confirmed the accusation, but he continued to deny it. "I don't like her! I don't!"

Duncan shot a sly look at Courtney and Bridgette before addressing Tyler. "Hey, it's okay to like her, man. She's hot." While Bridgette remained unperturbed, Courtney's lips had pursed, and her back had stiffened. He continued. "A total babe. Banging, even. And dumb as a door-knob too. Man, if you could only get her in a room alone, you could—"

"Duncan," Courtney interrupted. "No one wants to hear about your unfulfilled fantasies!" She turned to him slowly, as if it caused her great pain.

Duncan smirked and played the card he'd been planning for a while. "You're just jealous of her rack."

"WHAT?!" Courtney yelled, taken aback. She shoved back on her tree stump in an attempt to put more distance between herself and the delinquent, nearly losing her seat and falling off.

"What, are you deaf?" he asked after he finished chuckling. "_You're just jealous of her—"_

"I heard you the first time!" Courtney shouted. "I'll have you know that—" Bridgette placed a calming hand on Courtney's shoulder, warning her to stop talking before she said something stupid in defense of her 'rack'. _Thank you, Bridgette. _After a second or two of deep, yoga breaths, Courtney opened her eyes and looked at the people settled around her, steadfastly ignoring the boy on her left.

"Ugh," she said. "Meeting adjourned!" She rose from her tree stump snappishly and walked a slight distance from the crowd, Bridgette's hand falling off of her shoulder. The rest of the Bass quickly dispersed after that, leaving Tyler and Harold sitting together.

"So…" Harold said, casting around for a conversational topic. "You're attracted to Lindsay?"

"NO!" Tyler looked around for an escape and found none. "…Okay, maybe a little." Harold's gaze didn't waver. "…What?!"

_-=-_

Several hours after the slightly disastrous (yet highly amusing) team meeting, DJ found himself sitting next to Geoff, a bit aside from the rest of the team.

Bridgette looked amused by Tyler's attempts to speak with Katie and Sadie, while Courtney just looked bothered.

Eva moved to step 500 in her 5,000 step fitness routine—crunches—most likely doing them in time with the music blasting from her MP3 player.

Harold was asleep, occasionally mumbling something about ninjas and defending the universe.

Duncan had announced, about half an hour earlier, that he was going into the forest to find some good carving wood while posing the question, "What else am I supposed to do?" Neither Geoff nor DJ had had any reply to that, though Chris had insisted that a cameraman go with him.

Chris himself had recently run back to the kitchens, claiming, "Hunger doesn't flatter my figure!"

DJ silently cursed himself for falling asleep so early in the challenge. Not only had he let his team down, but it had also left him with a lot more energy and a lot less to do with it. Geoff and Duncan could concentrate most of their efforts on not falling asleep, but DJ obviously wasn't struggling with that problem. _But then again, _he thought,_ Would I rather have slept and lost, or have stayed awake and risked some serious mental stress? _

Sitting slightly more upright, he began to internally weigh the pros and cons of staying awake for, say, three and a half days. That sounded about right. He pulled his knees up toward his chest and rested his forearms on them.

"NOOOOOOOO!!!" Geoff screamed, jerking up from where he'd been reclining. His cowboy hat flew off of his head and landed a meter away.

"What?!" DJ shrieked, flattening himself against the ground and covering his head. He peeked up at Geoff. "What happened? You fall asleep? Have a heart attack? Is there—" he gasped, his voice reaching an unnaturally high pitch, "A snake?" He searched around frantically for the sight of anything reptilian, but didn't spot anything.

Geoff jumped up onto a tree stump, his eyes scanning over the whole camp like he was looking for something in particular. DJ pulled himself back into a sitting position. After a second, Geoff's breathing evened out and he hopped back down, leaving a set of sandal-prints in the dirt. "I just thought…I didn't know if…" He crawled over to retrieve his cowboy hat and then returned, plopping it onto his head. "DJ, dude, is it possible to dream while you're still awake?" he asked, uncharacteristically serious.

DJ's eyebrows furrowed while he tried to recall what he'd learned in health class. Had they even covered dreams? Yeah, he was pretty sure they had. "I don't know," he replied thoughtfully. "Dreams have something to do with your subconscious, I believe. So, if you were gone out far enough for your subconscious to kick in, I _guess_ it could be possible." He shrugged, searching Geoff for any clues to the reason behind his outburst. "But tell me: What happened?"

"Well, no offense or anything, man, but I don't know if I can really tell you this," Geoff dithered, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. DJ waited. "Aw," he said after a second, back in his loud, enthusiastic tone, "I guess it's no big deal! Maybe telling you will make me feel better!" He took one more look around the camp before turning back to DJ. "So, I _know_ that I didn't fall asleep, okay?" he established. "I was just zoned out for a little while there."

DJ nodded, not recalling any point where Geoff's eyes had actually closed. Vacant staring, though? He'd done a lot of that.

Geoff smiled as his claim was validated. "So, I dunno if it was a dream or what, but I dreamed that… I dreamed…" DJ watched him take a deep breath. "I dreamed that we'd lost the challenge and then voted Bridgette off!" he squeaked. Then, continuing normally: "It kind of freaked me out, man."

Two heads—one dark, one blonde—turned to regard the surfer chick. She sat a good way away, talking with Courtney animatedly, as if she were recounting a story.

"Bridgette," DJ repeated, turning the idea over in his head. "You like Bridgette." He smiled affably, offering his fist to Geoff for poundage.

Geoff returned it. "Yeah, bro, I think I do." He gazed in her direction far too dreamily for someone who just 'thought' he liked a girl. "She's just so chill. And pretty. And nice! She's really nice. But I haven't gotten to talk to her too much." Geoff sighed and focused back on DJ.

"Well, why don't you talk to her now, G? She's wide open!" DJ nudged his buddy's shoulder with his own.

"I don't know, dude," Geoff said, flopping down onto his back. He pulled his hat a bit more forward on his face to block out the late afternoon sun. "I'm not too good at that whole thing."

"No way," DJ said, hauling Geoff up off of the ground. "Come on. We're going over there right now, and you are going to talk to her, and it'll be fine." He pushed Geoff in the girls' direction, while Geoff forcefully resisted. He, however, was no match for the strongman behind him, powered on by his good intentions. "Don't sweat it, bro. I'll stay behind you the whole time in case you really need the help. Like your wingman!" DJ had always found that concept interesting.

"All right, dude… If you say so," Geoff said, slowly becoming more sure of himself. Then he paused. "Like my what-man?"

DJ laughed as he and Geoff closed the gap between the girls and themselves. "Nothing, man," he said. "Now go ahead." With one final shove, Geoff was off. "How bad could it be?" DJ asked himself as Geoff approached the girls.

He was about to find out.

_-=-_

Duncan knelt on the forest floor, carefully inspecting two seemingly similar chunks of wood. He held up the block in his right hand to a slit of sunlight filtering through the leaves, and then held up the chunk in his left. Upon deciding that the left piece was favorable to the right, he pocketed it, along with several others he'd found previously. Turning around quickly to head back, he nearly walked headfirst into a camera lens.

"Get that thing out of my face," he sneered, shoving it carelessly. The cameraman struggled to follow behind as he took off abruptly. "Why are you so _annoying_?"

The young man didn't reply.

"Oh, yeah," Duncan said wryly. "You're not allowed to talk to me." He smirked at the guy, forced to put his best efforts toward capturing Duncan's _oh so_ fascinating trip on film. "You realize," Duncan said, "That Chris is never going to air this. You're wasting your time."

The intern narrowed his eyes, but still didn't reply. The trees appeared to be thinning out by that point, which seemed to give him great pleasure.

-

Duncan continued to weasel at the man halfheartedly, but it wasn't quite as fun since he never replied. After exiting the forest (and the intern splitting the scene soon as Duncan was in someone else's sight), Duncan went about locating Geoff and DJ. A quick survey of the area revealed DJ sitting in the thick of the Bass, looking distressed. Geoff sat a good way away from everyone else, laid out on the ground—spread eagle—his hat partially covering his face.

Duncan strode to where DJ was sitting and parked himself next to him. Reaching into his pocket and pulling out a hunk of wood, he said conversationally, "So, Geoff looks messed up."

"Oh, dude," DJ said, relieved to have someone to talk to. "You have NO idea." He shoved back half a meter to give Duncan more room.

One look at DJ's face had Duncan saying, "Don't even tell me." The criminal flipped out his knife and absentmindedly shaved at his recently-found wood.

DJ's expression became pleading. "Oh, naw, man, don't do that. I need your help with this!" Geoff needed it even more.

The delinquent sighed. "Fine, then." He looked up from his whittling and back uninterestedly. "What happened?"

DJ was quiet for a moment, offering the explanation: "Okay, just hold on. I need to make sure I get all this right." After sufficient remembrance had taken place, DJ resumed. "Right dude, here goes. So, Geoff's liking Bridgette, okay?"

Duncan nodded to his carving; that came as no surprise to him.

"So after he had this dream thing about her, I told him to go talk to her. No problem, right?"

Duncan looked up from his carving, unmoved; obviously there had been a problem, or else DJ wouldn't be talking to him about one.

"Okay, so there _was _a problem," DJ admitted. "See, it started out fine. Bridgette was over there sitting with Courtney." He gestured to where Courtney sat, unaccompanied. "So when Geoff got over there, he asked Courtney if she'd leave for a second."

Duncan snorted and raised an eyebrow. Courtney? Leave? Oh yeah, he could _totally _see that happening.

"Naw, dude," DJ said, reading his thoughts. "She was actually cool with it. She just asked why he wanted her to leave, which is, ya know, normal. But when Geoff went to think up an answer…aw." DJ shook his head. "It was bad."

"I don't see what he could of said," Duncan said, "To deserve _that_." He waved in Geoff's general direction. The boy had rolled over and was lying face in the dirt, still spread-eagle, obviously even more depressed.

"Just listen, bro," DJ resumed. "First it was okay: Geoff told Courtney that he wanted to talk to Bridgette alone. But then he tried to, I dunno, take it back or something, and he told Courtney that she could stay if she didn't want to sit alone. So then Courtney asked why she would mind sitting alone, and Geoff said…man, what did'ee say?"

DJ thought about it for a moment. Duncan opened his mouth, presumably to have DJ speed it up, but DJ said:

"Okay, got it! So Geoff said—" DJ changed his voice so as to impersonate their other friend. " 'I just didn't know if you'd feel like loser or something if you weren't sitting with Bridgette.' To Courtney!" DJ looked to Duncan for his reaction.

After taking half a second to soak in what he'd just been told, Duncan doubled over laughing. "But wait, man!" he said in between guffaws, "That doesn't even make sense!" His torso shook with laughter. "Sitting alone? And Bridgette?"

"I know!" DJ replied, frustrated. He didn't seem to find the situation quite so funny. "I think Geoff was just trying to be sensitive to Courtney's feelings…or something." Mind returning to the present, DJ summarized: "So now Courtney's seriously ticked off because Geoff implied that she's a loser when she's not with Bridgette. And now Bridgette's ticked off because _she_ thinks that _Geoff_ called _Courtney_ a loser. It's a big mess, dude."

Duncan, having mostly recovered from his laughter by that point, saw a perfect opportunity for making trouble. He spoke slightly louder than necessary and said, "But Courtney _is_ a loser." He watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Courtney looked around like someone who thought she'd heard her name, but who wasn't quite sure. After a second of not spotting anyone, she returned to monitoring Eva—she'd seemed to have taken that task upon herself in hope of preventing a blow-up.

DJ pulled his head back a little, thinking Duncan's sudden statement was directed at him. "Well, I don't know, man. She seems cool to me…?" Duncan ignored him. "I mean, I guess sometimes—"

"No," Duncan cut in. "Courtney's definitely a _loser_." He watched Courtney that time, their eyes meeting as her head jerked up. Her dark eyes narrowed.

"And besides being a loser," Duncan continued, staring at her, "She's also uptight, bossy, controlling, and has a bad temper." Duncan ticked the traits off on his fingers while DJ watched helplessly. His eyes darted from Courtney to Duncan; he was concerned that they were only a few meters apart.

In a flash, Courtney grabbed Eva by the wrist and pulled her to where she stood. "Eva!" she said, also quite loudly. "Don't you think that Duncan's a _total idiot_ who can't even think of a _decent insult_?" It obviously wasn't much of a question.

Eva pulled her arm out of Courtney's death-grip, but answered with a concise, "Yes." Courtney looked back to Duncan, posing a silent challenge.

Stepping a bit forward, Duncan continued. "_And_ she's annoying, tense, a goody-goody…"

"And don't you think that Duncan's a disgusting, immature, brainless imbecile?" Eva looked at the CIT who had just spoken, almost too confused to be angry.

"And you know what else, Deej?" Duncan asked, preparing for the final blow. DJ furrowed his eyebrows, afraid to answer. "Courtney's pretty ugly, too."

"Okay, that's IT!" Courtney yelled as she stomped over to where Duncan stood. "What is your_ problem_?!"

"Well, apparently," Duncan said, crossing his arms, "I'm a brainless imbecile." He smirked.

"Apparently!" Then Courtney spat back, "You don't even know what that means."

"I think I've got a pretty good idea," he said in response. "Hey, DJ," Duncan said, calling to him. "Do you think I'm a brainless imbecile?" DJ's eyes widened as he grappled for a suitable response.

Courtney spared him. "Don't bring DJ into this!" she ordered. "He didn't even agree with your weak attempt at vilification!" Courtney looked back at Eva, who was looking more and more furious by the second. "At least _my _person agreed with me!"

Duncan scoffed. "_Your _person's psychotic." Eva jumped at him, and was prevented only by Harold, Sadie, and Tyler's combined reflexes; Duncan didn't flinch.

Courtney made a mock-delighted face. "Ooh, what a big word!" she cheered. "Who'd you learn it from, your prison warden?"

Duncan pulled himself up so as to stand a little taller. "Actually," he corrected, "It wasn't prison—it was juvy. And I learned it from _you_." Courtney gawked at him, momentarily unsure of how to respond; she hadn't been expecting that. "You know," Duncan said, standing right in front of her. "There are a few _other_ things I'd like to learn from you, too." He licked his lips suggestively.

Courtney sucked in a huge breath. "Get away from me!" she screamed, barely keeping herself from slapping him. "I'm tired, and I'm not dealing with you right now!" After storming across the entire open space, she turned away and began massaging her temples. A minute later, Bridgette returned to stand next to her.

Courtney appeared to give a rapid review of what had just happened. Judging by the amount of times Bridgette looked over to him, Courtney mentioned Duncan many, many, _many _times.

_-=-_

Chris crept up to his podium long after the sun had retreated out of the sky. The campfire had been lit, little shadows jumping around whenever anyone moved—not that there was much movement. "40 hours, campers!" he stage-whispered; he had to be sure the cameras could hear him! He took another look around at the teens, most knocked out, some only hanging on to consciousness by a thread.

Katie and Sadie leaned against each other, snoring. Chris made himself a mental note to wake them up soon and send them away.

Eva sat on the ground, seemingly finished with her fitness routine for the night.

Tyler's head bounced around on his neck as he struggled to keep from nodding off. Chris snickered at him.

Geoff sat behind Duncan with his head in his hands, Duncan eyeing Courtney contemplatively from behind.

Courtney herself jogged in place in front of the crowd, which seemed to take a great effort on her part.

Harold was still asleep on the ground, though no more mentioning of ninjas or the universe could be heard.

Bridgette and DJ had previously been sent away to get some dinner; they hadn't seemed very happy about the prospect, either.

Chris slumped over his podium, regretting his agreement to this challenge; it was boring! He picked at the dirt under his nails unenthusiastically, blankly monitoring the campers. Searching through his mind for a means to speeding up the process, he slowly smiled. He had just the thing. Now, all that he had to do was locate a textbook…

* * *

Better? That's certainly what I was aiming for.  
Longer? Heck to the yes.  
Enjoyable? I won't know that unless you review. Which leads me too:

Requests? Comments? Complaints? Please PM or review and let me know!


	5. Happen In Threes

Hello! First of all I'll just say: HAPPY SUMMER! No school means more time for writing/editing/posting! However, this will _probably _be the last fic I get the chance to post for a while because I'm jetting off to Pennsylvania 6/19/09. And I won't have any decent computer access. It breaks my heart.

Now that we have that out of the way: This newest story is about all our couples characters (D, C, G, T, G, B). We have them in their respective pairings, and then we have them mixed up a bit too… You'll see.

*Takes place the day after Up The Creek, starting mid-morning and going through late-afternoon.* And by the way—_the stories keep getting longer_. I really don't know how to stop. This one kind of…wrote itself to life. But for some reason, it doesn't happen unless I'm sitting at my laptop.

**Disclaimer: **Total Drama Island is not mine. (A real shame, I know.)

* * *

_B._ Ping! _R._ Ping! _I. _Ping! _G. _Geoff knelt on the steps of the Bass cabin, facing the two adjacent screen doors. From the substantial pile of collected stones on his left, he picked up nugget after nugget and tossed them at the right-hand door (which belonged to the girls), spelling out Bridgette's name in his mind; he'd repeated it three times already.

DJ had previously convinced him to make amends with Bridgette for the unfortunate 'heart-shaped hand-made clay bowl' incident, and though Duncan had had quite different advice regarding the whole thing—"You're such a sap! Just quit while you're _sort of _behind,"—DJ had won out in the end, which left Geoff outside, beginning to doubt if Bridgette was _inside_.

Continuing to toss his stones, Geoff had made it to the fifth mental repetition of Bridgette's name (and had neared the bottom of his pile) by the time he heard footsteps coming from inside the girls' cabin. Bridgette sure had taken a while to notice the pinging, but better late than never, he figured!

Straightening up from his sitting position, Geoff stood the proper distance away from the door so as to not be hit by its outward swing. Nothing more than a vague outline of a shadow moving in the back of the boxy room, Bridgette spoke before he could see her. The voice he heard, however, didn't seem to belong to her…

"Ugh, Duncan!" a girl accused from inside, along with the sounds of furious stomping. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times! It's not going to—" The door crashed against the side of the cabin, revealing a confused Courtney to an equally puzzled Geoff. "…happen." Her face changed from one of open agitation to one so devoid of emotion she could _only_ be ticked off.

"Hi, Geoff," she said slowly, attempting to come down from the confrontational state she'd worked herself up into. Then, after a swift glance at the embarrassed romantic and at the little stones scattered chaotically around the porch, Courtney put two and two together. Raising her eyebrows, she asked primly, "Is there a reason for your throwing pebbles at my door?"

Swallowing and fiddling with his hat awkwardly, Geoff struggled to come up with the best course of action. Wasn't Bridgette supposed to be in there? That was the _plan. _After a moment of hesitation, he said, "Uh, sorry to bug you, Court, but is Bridgette around?"

Courtney thought back to the other night's recount of the 'heart-shaped hand-made clay bowl' debacle that Bridgette had given. Then, quickly deciding between the options of lying and telling the truth, she smiled at Geoff sadly, as one would smile at a puppy not allowed inside the house. He smiled back hesitantly, only strengthening Courtney's mental image of a puppy. "Bridgette went out a while ago, Geoff," Courtney said in her efficient manner. "I think she went swimming." Then, conversation being over, Courtney turned to go back inside.

Oblivious to her desire to retreat, Geoff responded eagerly. "See, I thought she'd be hanging at the dock too! I mean, I checked there first and everything, but I didn't even spot her board."

After looking over her shoulder, Courtney sighed and stepped out of the doorway, allowing the door to swing closed behind her. "Did you check the kitchen?" she asked, gradually becoming less cross. "Bridgette usually heads there after swimming."

"Yeah!" Geoff said, happy to have gotten a response. "No sign of her! I even checked with the girls in the Gopher cabin, and they haven't seen her either. And then Heather yelled at me. Something about messing up her Saraffin Max manicure… or something." Geoff visibly winced at the memory.

Courtney laughed. "You mean Paraffin Wax manicure," she informed him.

The boy across from her shrugged, announcing, "Dudette, I have no clue." Then, hoping that perhaps Courtney had lied a moment ago, Geoff asked again, standing on his toes in an attempt to see into the cabin: "So, Bridge's _really_ not in there?"

Pursing her lips, Courtney replied, "No, she's _really_ not," only the tiniest hint of mockery in her voice, a force of habit. Geoff didn't detect it.

After stumbling over his cheerless "All right, then. Sorry to, uh, bother you and everything" and then his hopeful "Let me know if you see her, 'kay?", he turned and hopped down the steps, presumably to return to searching. Courtney, on the verge of saying something not so kind, swallowed her words and said instead, "Good luck, Geoff." She sort of meant it.

Then, returning to her bunk, she waited for the screen door to slam closed before mumbling what she'd just about said to his face. "You'd do well not to bother her, though, pinhead. You've done enough damage." The words, though, contained no hint of anger or disdain. In fact, one might say they were delivered with a strange inflection of fondness, one of which even Courtney would not be able to explain.

Settling back into her bed, she picked up a superficial magazine pilfered from Sadie's stash and flipped through it, looking for something of substance; she found nothing. Her eyes occasionally strayed to the recently-fixed clay bowl on the girls' shared dresser, and would then return to the tacky titles of "She Kissed WHO?!" and "Horoscopes: Do They _Really _Work?"

After reading her own horoscope (Taurus) over five times and not registering it at all, Courtney shut the magazine and carefully set it back where she'd found it. _Where _is_ Bridgette?_ she wondered. Her capable mind came up with several viable possibilities, but not one of them came close to…

_-=-_

"Okay Trent," Bridgette said soothingly. "Now take a few, deep breaths." She sat on the floor of the males' side of the Gopher cabin (ironically, the only place in camp Geoff had neglected to search), her legs twisted up in what appeared to be a humanly impossible position; Trent sat a few meters across from her, attempting to copy the pose with little to no success. Looking up to examine the intricacies of the arrangement once again, Trent squinted in confusion. _Is that even possible? _

"Good," Bridgette said, though Trent knew it was a lie. Looking up again, he had just enough time to notice that Bridgette's eyes were completely closed before he tumped over onto his left side, legs remaining twisted. Using his arms to unwind his lower half, he rubbed his calves in an attempt to restore blood circulation as the feeling slowly returned to his legs. Just as he began to regret agreeing to yoga, he reminded himself that he was doing this for a friend.

DJ had approached Trent earlier that day with a simple request: "Could you keep Bridgette busy for a little while I get Geoff ready? Geoff wants to get Bridgette himself, but I'm not seein' that working out so well… Aw, thanks dude! We both owe you one." Of course, Trent had readily agreed to help his pal. It wouldn't be any trouble—or so he'd thought.

Earlier, carefully in Bridgette's presence, Trent had run around frantically, 'searching' for his 'lost' guitar. He'd panted and gasped and done just about everything short of fainting, all the while calling things like, "Have you seen my guitar? Aw, man, _please_ tell me you've seen her. I don't know what I'll do if something happened to her! I have no clue where she went…"

And Bridgette, a good-natured soul, had been patient while he told her his fabricated story about the supposed whereabouts of his instrument, and had even offered to do some yogic meditation with him to calm him down. Of course, Trent was entirely clear on the whereabouts of his guitar—he'd loaned it to Geoff earlier as part of the _plan_—but he didn't freak out often, so he figured a lost guitar made for a believable story.

That left him sitting in the peace and quiet, alone in the cabin with Bridgette, twisting into positions that were sure to leave him insanely, irrevocably sore tomorrow. But, you know, anything for a friend in need; if he'd been in trouble with Gwen, he'd have wanted some help too.

"Okay," Bridgette continued mildly. "Now we'll move into Bhujangasana, also called Cobra pose."

After a quick but extreme expression of horror, Trent decided he'd taken enough yoga in the past hour to hold for a lifetime. "Huh, you know Bridgette, that sounds great and everything, but I'm actually feeling _way_ better now. Really calm. Thanks a million for…that." He put his hands together in prayer and bowed to Bridgette like in the movies. "Enjoy Jangabugasana."

Bridgette looked a bit surprised at having been interrupted before the end of her session, but didn't seem to mind. "Glad I could help," she said a bit absentmindedly, still deeply immersed in Cobra pose.

Unsure of whether he was entirely dismissed, Trent stood up slowly, stumbling over his Jell-O-ey legs. Losing his balance, a loud slap! sounded as he smacked his hand against the wall to avoid falling; Bridgette jolted out of Bhujangasana. Yogic spell broken, she stood while Trent marveled at how sturdy she seemed. Apparently, yoga wasn't Kryptonite to everyone. _Who knew?_

"Oh, hey," Bridgette said as an afterthought. "Did you remember where your guitar is?" Bridgette looked about ready to leave the cabin, a problem since Geoff hadn't yet signaled to Trent—it was all about the _plan_.

Trent snatched at a reason to delay her. "My guitar! Yeah, I think I remember. Well, I'm stuck between two places, actually. I might have left it on Gwen's side of the cabin yesterday…" Bridgette nodded and headed even closer to the door. "OR," Trent stalled, "It could be over by the bonfire." Then, reverting to his chilled self: "What do you think?"

Bridgette's expression turned to one of amused confusion, eyebrows furrowed but smile present. "I _don't_ really know where your guitar is," she said. "I guess you're going to have to think about it."

"Oh, right," Trent said, ears straining to hear the signal (a chord from his own guitar). "You think you could help me with that?" he asked distractedly. _Still listening…_

"Help you with what?" Bridgette asked, struggling to keep up with this train of thought. "...Thinking?"

Trent heard it then—a combination of notes played so faintly that only someone listening for them would have heard. Trent's nose wrinkled slightly at Geoff's amateurish technique, but what could a person expect after only an hour-long crash course in guitar?

"Are you feeling all right, Trent?" Bridgette questioned, understandably concerned for his mental health.

"Oh, yeah," Trent said. "I'm fine. You know, I _just _remembered where my guitar is. You want to come get it with me?" Trent was already halfway out the door.

"Uh, sure," Bridgette said, following after him. "Where is it?"

A moment of indecision later, Trent decided on the truth. "Geoff has it."

Bridgette's eyes narrowed and she slowed her walk, still a bit shaken by the 'heart-shaped hand-made clay bowl' incident. "Why does _Geoff_ have your guitar?"

"It's a pretty long story, actually," Trent hedged, determined to reach the dock where Geoff was waiting for them. Rounding the corner of the Bass cabin, the dock came into view, just as…

_-=-_

Bridgette, squinting against the late afternoon sun, made out Geoff's silhouette in front of the backdrop of the ocean. Geoff stood facing her wearing a meek smile; the fingers of his right hand twitched repetitively, mimicking guitar chords. One of the camp's wooden deck chairs had been placed across from him to look out at the end of the dock, and Trent's guitar lay behind Geoff, a few planks from the water.

Trent, upon seeing his guitar's position, tightened his face in worry. His eyes traced the distance between his instrument and the water a few times before he jogged over, picked it up gingerly, and handed it to Geoff. "Okay, man," he whispered. "You have this. Just remember what we went over, and you'll be fine. And, I'll be right over there—" he jerked his head in Bridgette's direction "—in case you get stuck. Solid?" Geoff nodded, and Trent smiled encouragingly before retreating.

Tipping his head at Bridgette politely, he proceeded to situate himself approximately 14 meters behind her, a distance considerate enough so the couple could still feel _some_ small element of privacy, but not so far away that he couldn't bail Geoff out should the need arise.

Bridgette, seeing no easy route of escape, settled into the chair set up for her and straightened out her sweatshirt. Geoff stood watching for her to finish; as Bridgette looked up, their eyes met.

Geoff cleared his throat, his mouth pulling into a smile. In a heartfelt gesture, he knelt down in front of Bridgette, hands around the neck of Trent's guitar. "Bridgette," he began, his formal tone indicating many hours of rehearsal. "When I made you that bowl in arts and crafts, I wasn't really thinking. I see now that it was pretty weird and stuff, and…uh…"

Geoff's eyebrows furrowed as he searched for the rest of the speech. "Oh, yeah, right. So, in apology, I made up—" Geoff interpreted a stern look from Trent and changed his wording. "I mean I _wrote—" _Another stern look from behind Bridgette. Geoff screwed up his face in an effort to recall the correct terminology.

"Composed!"

Bridgette didn't turn around to look, but logic would indicate that Trent was responsible for the correction.

Geoff made some brotherly gesture to Trent in a sign of thanks and then said, "Composed, right. Sorry, bro! Okay, so I _composed_ this song for you, Bridge, so uh, I hope you… like it."

Geoff stood and shifted his attention to the guitar, recalling the crash course Trent had given him. Looking out to Trent for his starting chord, he fixed his hands to match and strummed the opening note. Then, in a surprisingly clear voice, he began (accompanied by a random combination of approximately three beginner chords):

"_A few days ago, I made you a bowl,_

_But Deej said that was weird, and-that-was-probs-why-you-disappeared._

_But I worked ultra hard, and I learned guitar_

_To prove to you that I really do, _

_Care about you—but friends would be cool!_

_I don't wanna lose what we had, cause then I'd be sad,_

_So if you'd forget the clay, I just wanted to say,_

_Sorry 'bout that whole thing: that's all I've got to sing." _

Finished, he laid down the guitar on the dock and walked to where Bridgette sat. He offered her his hand, and she took it. After becoming stabilized on her feet she tugged to reclaim her hand, but Geoff held it tightly. A moment later, after what appeared to be an intense mental battle on his part, he said, "I really am sorry, dudette. That whole deal was outta line. But are we—er—_you_ good now?"

He eyed her uncertainly, chewing on the inside of his lower lip, a long-lived nervous habit of his. The blondes stood there for a few moments, awkwardly clasping hands on the edge of the dock; it might have gone on for quite a bit longer if it weren't for an interruption from Trent.

Once again eyeing his abandoned guitar, he crept around the couple and knelt down beside it, inspecting it for damage, all the while managing to avoid eye contact. Becoming assured of its safety, he grabbed it by the neck and secured the instrument on his back with the strap.

Finally looking back at Bridgette and Geoff (who were, by that point, looking at him rather curiously) he offered by means of explanation: "Not a scratch on her, man." He held up a quick 'A-OK' sign. "So, yeah, I'll just grab her now… Thanks guys." He scurried away without another word, but not before flashing Geoff a thumbs-up.

Meanwhile, Geoff still awaited the answer to his previous question. Carefully extracting her hand from Geoff's grip, Bridgette responded, "Yeah, I think I'm good now." She smiled, and then quoted from the song, "Friends would be cool."

Upon hearing those words, Geoff's demeanor changed from nervous to ecstatic as if a switch had been flipped. "Yeah it would! Hit it here!" He offered his palm to Bridgette, who met it with a high-five. "Friends is _awesome_, Bridge."

Bridgette smiled, crinkling her eyes. "Friends _is _pretty nice, huh?"

"You know it!" Geoff whooped.

Bridgette, as quickly taken in by his infectious spirit as scared away from it, felt her mood brightening at an exponential rate. "So, as friends, do you want to go to thank Trent with me?" Bridgette looked past the Bass cabin to the Gopher cabin, where Trent was just managing to make his way through the left-hand door. "That was really cool of him."

"Sure thing!" Leaving the deck chair sitting crookedly on the pier, the recently-reconciled pair made their way to the Gopher cabin. They had nearly made it inside when, loudly interrupting Bridgette's compliment to Geoff's aptitude for guitar…

_-=-_

Courtney slammed out of the Bass cabin, running straight to the porch railing and clutching her stomach. She leaned over, stood suspended for a moment, and then promptly proceeded to throw up into the unfortunate bushes below. This, sadly, was not an entirely rare occurrence—with Chef's cooking being the only thing the campers consumed, gagging, puking, retching, barfing, and other assortments of upchucking were not as uncommon as they should have been.

Assuming that Chef was behind the episode (either intentionally or not intentionally—no one was really sure), Geoff and Bridgette offered Courtney sympathetic looks before entering the Gopher cabin, not out of lack of concern but instead out of "If I'd just been on the bad end of food poisoning, I'd want some space as well." If Courtney had straightened up, dusted herself off, and then proceeded to the washrooms, like nearly all of the campers had been forced to do at one point or another, no one would have given it a second thought.

Courtney, however, did not straighten up, dust herself off, _or_ head to the washrooms. Instead, she slumped over the rickety railing and slowly slid to the ground. Arranging herself so she was upright, she closed her eyes, sitting in silence; anyone on the island would have known that was highly abnormal Courtney behavior.

Then, interrupting the quiet, Duncan busted out of his half of the cabin, headphones resting on his shoulders. "Okay," he called, glancing around. "Who just puked?" He propped the screen door open with one hand while his eyes searched around for Chef's latest victim.

Teal eyes widening at the sight of Courtney sitting on the ground, he sniggered. "Princess! It was _you?_" he asked, incredulous. Duncan pulled off his headphones and tossed them inside before removing his hand from the door, allowing it to bounce closed. He crossed the porch to where Courtney sat and said, "I can't believe you actually ate that mess Chef tried to give us yesterday."

Duncan waited for the biting punch-line. However, a few moments later, he realized there was a slight problem: no punch-line had come. No insult, no jab, no venom to speak of. Courtney just sat there, a scowl fixed onto her face.

Thrown off, Duncan squatted down to get level with her. Upon closer inspection, he noticed a few things: (1) Her usually tan complexion had become just a little bit paler than usual (he could have counted the freckles between her eyes) (2) she was tired (obvious by the lack of biting punch-line), and (3) she was sweating (does that need explanation?).

"Okay, you're not lookin' so good right now," Duncan said. He wasn't familiar with many legal things, but illness had become one of his specialties after he'd been forced to help out at the community hospital as a portion of community service. He couldn't even remember what crime it had been for, but the [disgustingly] encyclopedic knowledge remained.

At that remark, Courtney seemed to remember where she was, who she was talking to, and what type of response was acceptable in the situation. Making a remarkable recovery, she snapped, "You don't know what you're talking about!" and then scooted around to sit on the cabin steps. "I feel fine."

Duncan sat down next to her and placed the back of his hand to her forehead.

"Don't touch me," she threatened, pushing his hand away.

It was too late. Duncan smirked as his original theory was confirmed. He turned to her announcing, "You're sick, Sweetheart."

Courtney's lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. "I'm not sick." Courtney didn't _get_ sick. "And don't call me Sweetheart." Courtney hadn't been sick since the third grade, a fact she credited to her impeccable hygiene and superior dieting habits! And even if she _was_ sick (which she wasn't), she would never admit it to Duncan, of all people!

Duncan scoffed and leaned back on his elbows, settling in for the argument he saw coming. "Yes you are. You're sick. And not just sick—you're burning up, sweat it out, sleep for five days, I-need-a-bowl-of-chicken-noodle-soup sick."

"I'm not!"

"Then why'd you just puke? Only sick people puke."

"I assure you, I'm not sick." Courtney then cast a sour look at the bush that had received the remnants of her breakfast.

"So you're bulimic," he stated matter-of-factly.

"What?" Courtney cried, confused by his sudden change in direction. "No, of course I'm not bulimic! Where did _that_ come from?"

Duncan chuckled as he rose from his seat and began pacing around in front of her. "Well, you just barfed, but now you're trying to tell me you're not sick at all. All logic points to bulimia, so face it:" He put on the serious face of a doctor and then turned to confront her. "You have a problem."

Courtney turned an angry shade of red as she propelled herself off the steps and into Duncan's face. "Duncan, _I don't have bulimia_!"

"Then why'd you just blow chunks into the bushes?"

"I'm just not feeling all that well, OKAY?!" she screeched. Then, seeing the triumphant leer making its way over Duncan's features, she wished she could take the words and shove them right back down her [admittedly] germ-infested mouth.

She stared at Duncan with a glare of such intense hatred it could have wilted a flower. And not just a flower! More like a whole _field_ of flowers!—at least that was what Courtney was going for. Duncan, though, seemed unaffected by the death-stare; he looked back at her with an expression of child-like innocence, one of which Courtney was certain was feigned.

Courtney, unaccustomed to such clear defeat, was unsure of how to proceed. Should she just admit he was correct and cut her losses? Continuing to deny being sick was out of the question since she'd just _brilliantly_ declared she wasn't feeling well. She considered blaming the retch on Hatchet's food, but then remembered she'd neglected to eat dinner the other night—too busy helping Bridgette re-glue that horror Geoff had baked. Speaking of which, Bridgette still hadn't—

"Hello, sick person, care to join me?" Duncan called, waving his hand in front of her face. Courtney blinked and returned to the current situation, which Duncan interpreted as a cue to continue. "You can't stay here sick, so are you going to bunk at the infirmary on your own or do I have to force you over there?"

"None of the above," she said primly, turning away from Duncan to head back to her blissfully empty living quarters. Two steps' progress had been made before Duncan grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back down.

"Oh, no you don't. Look, since you're going to be slow and not go yourself, I'm getting Chef." He released her upper arm, grabbed her wrist, and began pulling her in the direction of the Mess Hall.

"LET GO OF ME!!!" The sheer volume of the command would have been enough to knock anyone else off his feet, but Duncan simply turned around to combat her next argument. His plans changed, though, as he saw the look of pure panic on Courtney's face. Her complexion had paled even further, leaving it whiter than it had been only a minute ago.

Duncan dropped her wrist and took a step back, folding his arms. "Okay Princess, what's _wrong_ with you?" The words were delivered as an insult, but the question behind them was mysteriously sincere.

Courtney closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and locked gazes with the delinquent in front of her. "You want to know what's wrong with me? Fine. So I'm sick, okay? I'll be mature and admit it." She stabbed a finger at his chest as she often did when trying to make a point. "But you're not going to tell _anyone_ about this."

Duncan opened his mouth to argue, but Courtney cut him off. "Don't even!" She took another breath and looked him head on, wearing a look of fierce determination. "No one can find out about this. If anyone does, they're going to want to vote me off; no one wants a sick person on their team! I am not going to sit back and get sent home for something so trivial as a minor ailment, especially when I'll be fine by tomorrow. So now: you're not going to tell anyone, I'm not going to tell anyone, I'm going to get better in a maximum of two days—just in time for the challenge—and if anyone asks, it was all because of Chef's dinner last night. Understood?"

Her stance was strong, eyes clearly saying, "Disagree with any part of those instructions and you'll be _very_ sorry when you wake up tomorrow." The pair stood there silently, watching the other for weakness, hesitation, or any other general signs of defeat; none were found on either account.

They broke gazes as they heard a quiet snigger. "What are you two _doing?_" Gwen asked, breaking the silence as she passed by the cabin. "You guys look ridiculous."

The suspicious duo momentarily ignored her. "_Clear?_" Courtney asked again, still waiting for her answer.

Duncan smirked. "Clear as mud, Darling." Courtney tensed up, so he continued quickly, holding his hands up. "Okay, _relax_, you have nothing to worry about." Having received her answer, Courtney turned for the washrooms. Duncan called up to her from where he stood, "You owe me one, though!"

Courtney, not even pausing to turn around, tipped her nose up and sniffed. "I owe you nothing." She arrived at the washrooms just as…

_-=-_

Gwen burst out laughing at the expression Duncan wore in response to the last statement. Gwen analyzed it and concluded that the look was a rough mix of annoyance, anger, bewilderment, a small amount of acceptance, and the look of someone doing a favor, all layered under the façade of eternal boredom; she found it to be highly comical, especially accentuated as it was by the piercings.

"Can the laughter," Duncan ordered emotionlessly—a good thing since the last emotion he'd felt had been anger. Annoyance. Amusement. Extreme distaste. Hatred. _Wait, hold on a minute…_

Gwen struggled to comply with his demand, eventually settling into silence, though a smile remained on her lips. "So," she said conversationally. "Why does Courtney owe you?"

Duncan rolled his eyes and plopped back down onto the steps, yanking out his pocket knife. "It's nothing," he retorted, unmoved.

"Yeah," Gwen said sarcastically, "I figured it really_ was_ nothing when she said 'I owe you nothing'." Gwen sat down on the grass in front of the cabin and laid her sketchbook on her lap. "Because I mean—and this is just me—but I walk around saying stuff like that _all_ the time."

Duncan chose not to reply to her cynicism, instead unenthusiastically shaving at his wooden seat. After a substantial amount of silence had passed by (and a large pile of wood shavings had collected beside the delinquent), he looked up to see Gwen watching him shrewdly.

"What?" he asked flatly.

Gwen shook her head, tucking a scraggly strand of hair behind her ear. "Nothing."

"Okay then."

Silence. And more. And then, when Duncan thought it undoubtedly couldn't go on for much longer, it went on.

"What??" The interrogatory was delivered through clenched teeth and with a bit more feeling.

"I'm just drawing," Gwen pointed out. "I don't know why you seem to think there's some hidden meaning to it." She recommenced her sketching to illustrate the point. "You must be paranoid."

Duncan stabbed his knife into the design he'd carved into the wood. "God, you chicks are all crazy, you know that? I have _NOTHING_ to be paranoid about and everyone here knows it."

Gwen paused and set her drawing down beside her. "Okay, one, not all 'chicks' are crazy," she corrected, using the air-quotes she was generally opposed to. "…Just some of them—I think Chris found all the real nuts. And two, do you want to say it, or should I?"

Duncan stepped forward, towering over Gwen from where she remained seated in the grass. Then, having established his dominance over the conversation, Duncan warned, "You have about 20 seconds to start making sense or believe me, I am going to—"

"Oh, come on Duncan," Gwen said, cutting him off. Sure, she knew it was stupid to provoke him, but because he was being so dense, she continued. "Give it up; you should know by now that you don't scare me."

Duncan's stance hardened, as if preparing to change her mind.

She ignored this change, saying, "If you're really going to make me say it, fine, I will, just don't shoot the messenger." Gwen stood and looked at him, stating simply—as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—"You have Courtney to be paranoid about."

She quickly continued before Duncan had enough time to register the accusation and damage any of his immediate environment. "And Courtney has you to be paranoid about! Whether it's true or not, the whole camp thinks you've got it for each other." She shrugged. " I can see how that's something to be paranoid about. And let's get real, with both of your _lovely _personalities, I can't really blame either of you for being worried." She snickered.

Steam practically flowed from Duncan's ears as he swiftly shot the messenger. "Goddamn it! Tell me: were me and the freaking CIT the only ones not to receive this fucked up memo of yours? Because last time I checked, I _hated_ her and she hated _me_. I can check again if you really want, but let me tell you: me hating her is one thing that is NEVER going to change. So you can tell whoever's spreading those fugging rumors that I'll just as soon mess with their _faces_ as they mess with my _reputation_." He spat out the last words.

Duncan ended his rant breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides. After a brief period of mental recovery he cracked his knuckles, but only for show; anyone within killing distance wasn't worth killing. Gwen would certainly have been the obvious choice, but so far she'd been the only girl on the island he hadn't wanted to throttle (though she _really_ wasn't helping her case), and he concluded that doing her damage wouldn't be worth the effort.

After waiting a moment for Duncan to cool down, Gwen spoke again. "Okay," she said, kneeling back down to gather her things. "I can see I'm not getting anywhere with you, so I'm leaving." As an afterthought, being only partially sarcastic, she added, "Try not to destroy anything while I'm gone."

Duncan glared at her through hostile eyes, replying with a cold, "No promises." No sarcasm was contained within the words.

As Gwen turned to continue on to her destination, Duncan spun around and stamped up the stairs, pleased with the satisfying bang! the screen door made as it collided with the cabin siding. Duncan snatched his headphones from their spot on the floor just as the door smacked back into the doorframe—another satisfying bang. After flopping onto his bunk, Duncan shoved the device over his ears and cranked up the head pounding music, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to block out all Gwen had just said to him.

So far, it was working quite well.

Gwen, on the other hand, wasn't suffering from any of those symptoms because…

_-=-_

She sat in a secluded part of the forest, not far from camp but located in a place that was more difficult to find—it suited her quite well. Her back supported by a sturdy tree, she concentrated on putting the finishing touches on the sketch she'd just been working on; it was one of her favorites.

"Mind if I join you?" Trent poked his head around a tree and fixed his green eyes on the artist.

"Trent!" she said, jumping up. She frantically knelt back down and flipped her sketchbook closed, holding it to her chest, and moved to stand. "How'd you get here?"

Trent halted her efforts as he knelt down beside her, a slight sparkle in his eye. "Well, first I took a step with my left foot, and then I took a step with my right, and then left again…"

Gwen's mouth smiled of its own accord, though she quickly forced it away. "Seriously, how did you find me?"

Trent became worried. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" Gwen assured him, later kicking herself for being so emphatic. She covered with, "Well, I mean, if you want. It doesn't matter to me."

"Cool. Then I'll stay." Trent settled down next to her, once more assured of being a welcome presence. "And to answer your question, I saw Duncan shouting at you. I thought you might want some… company after that."

_That's so sweet! _"That's kind of weird." Gwen furrowed her eyebrows. "So, you followed me."

Trent scratched the back of his head with minor embarrassment. "Well, I mean, yeah. Duncan sounded really ticked. You're not…" He looked down at her, eyes anxious. "…Hurt or anything, are you?" Trent found himself leaning a bit forward, desperate to prove himself sincere.

"Oh, I'm plenty hurt." Trent's eyes widened at this unexpected response while Gwen continued. "I had to row a canoe for a combined distance of 23.8 kilometers, run with a canoe over my head for two more kilometers while being chased by mutant beavers and prehistoric birds, watch as you and Barbie nearly died by quicksand, and build a fire that Izzy made explode. And _that_ was just yesterday."

Trent gave her a look somewhere between "Hey, I did all that too," and "You know that wasn't what I was getting at."

Gwen sighed. "But no, Duncan didn't go all juvenile delinquent on me." Gwen, who had up until that point been avoiding eye contact, turned and looked at the boy next to her. "Thanks, though."

Trent smiled. "Anytime. I mean, I just wanted to make sure—I figure he could have done some real damage if he wanted to." Trent screwed up his face at the thought. "BUT," he continued, "I bet if we wanted to, all of us together could beat him. …Maybe," Trent added jokingly. "As long as we got DJ."

Gwen smiled at the joke before rolling her eyes at the thought of Duncan doing damage. "Don't tell him I said this," she said conspiratorially, "But I really don't think Duncan'd hurt a fly."

"He killed that cockroach on the first day," Trent argued. "With an axe."

"It's a figure of speech."

"But he's been to juvy."

"I bet it was just for vandalism."

"_Just _for vandalism?"

"Trent, trust me: Don't worry about Duncan."

Gwen cast a nervous glance down at the sketchbook resting on her lap at those words, a glance that Trent didn't fail to detect.

"Fine," Trent conceded. "I trust you." Then, gesturing to the sketchbook, "What were you working on?"

Gwen snatched up her sheaf of papers and held it to her chest. "Nothing."

Trent laughed, trying to wrestle it from her. "Come on, you've got to be drawing _something._ Why can't I see?"

Gwen ducked around his arm and jumped up, running to the opposite end of the clearing. She shouted across: "It's not just you! I don't let anyone see them."

"But I'm special!" Trent jumped up and pursued her for several uneven circles before catching her around the waist from behind.

Gwen giggled, accepting defeat. "Oh, you're _real_ _special,_ all right." Trent motioned to her sketchbook with his head since his arms were tied up. "Fine. But if you want to see anything, you're going to have to let go of me."

Trent tipped his head sideways to look at her face. "What if I don't want to let go?" he asked slyly.

"Then you're not seeing any of my drawings!" Gwen struggled a bit until Trent released her. "Okay," she said, searching through the book. "This is the one I was just working on, inspired by Duncan." Gwen chuckled to herself as she handed over her [arguably] most prized possession.

A bit peeved that Duncan would be the inspiration for one of her drawings, Trent took the sketchbook carefully and looked down at the page. His mouth dropped open. "You _drew_ this?" he asked.

Gwen bit her lip and nodded nervously.

"It's amazing," Trent said in awe. The picture definitely held a likeness to Duncan, though the delinquent would have hated to know it. In the foreground, his head was placed on the body of a comically puny dragon (in the exact shade of green as Duncan's Mohawk); it appeared to be viciously breathing fire, but weak puffs of smoke around its mouth were the only result. Further on in the middle ground, obviously guarded by the dragon, was a medieval castle, complete with spires and yawning windows. Out of the most obvious window leaned a princess in a grey-violet dress with dark eyes and brown hair. "Courtney?" Trent asked, laughing.

"Yup." Gwen smiled, pleased with herself.

"That's ingenious!" Princess Courtney leaned out of the window precariously, aiming a bow and arrow at puny (but ferocious!) Dragon Duncan, all the while managing to yell at him furiously. The scene was so real (and so accurate), Trent could almost see it moving. He looked up from the drawing. "How do you come up with something like this?"

Gwen shrugged and sat back down against her tree, Trent following. "I just look around, I guess. Ideas are everywhere." Gwen thought for a moment before glancing up at Trent. "You won't tell anyone you saw this, right?"

Trent nodded. "I promise." He started flipping through the rest of the book. "So…" he started curiously. "Is there one of me in here?"

"Yup." Gwen swiftly grabbed the sketchbook from him. "But you can't see it." She cast him a cunning sideways glance.

Trent made a face at her. "Am I some sort of creature?"

Gwen didn't reply, but her eyes gave her away.

"Am I a dog?"

Gwen laughed. "No."

"A fish?"

"No."

"A…lion?"

"No!"

"A platypus?"

"You mean that duck/beaver/reptile thing?"

"Yeah."

"No!" Gwen fell on her side, laughing in hysterics.

Trent had one more guess. "I'm one of those mutant beavers, aren't I?" he asked, kidding.

Gwen stopped laughing and looked up at him in shock. "How'd you know?"

Trent's eyes widened. "I was _right?" _

"NOPE!" Gwen flipped her book closed and sat on it to insure its safety.

Trent attempted to wrestle it from her again, but Gwen was unyielding in its protection. Though the struggle continued for quite a while, it wouldn't be for weeks later that Trent discovered he was in fact, in Gwen's point of view, an owl.

To be specific, he was a handsome gray owl perched on the limb of a tree, flowing musical notes extending from its open beak in the illusion of song. The owl itself had glowing emerald eyes and a puff of feathers over its head in clever imitation of Trent himself. The owl, combined with the peaceful evening background, made for a picture that simply screamed _Trent_.

But like I said: Trent didn't know any of that yet.

* * *

I hope you all are happy with my animal of choice! Big thanks to **m u f f i n s xD** for the original idea. Good thinking! An owl makes sense to me because they're not very violent, but they can whip it out if they have to. They're beautiful and overall graceful and protective creatures. And they sort of make music, right? I mean, they hoot...

Okay, hope you enjoyed it; I had a total blast with this one. All my favorite characters are included in the couples, and it's strangely fun to write for the fanon pairings (CourtneyxGeoff, TrentxBridgette, GwenxDuncan), though I will never, ever, _ever_ write for them romantically. Ever.

I have to say, it was pretty difficult writing for Gwen and Duncan; I kept running into dead ends where they wouldn't talk to each other. I pretty much figured it out to my satisfaction, though. And, for those of you who are curious, I thought Gwen and Trent were the easiest (which surprised me since I've never written about them before).

And a quick question: Do you ever have a really good plan for one section of a story but then, when you go to write it, it just doesn't work? I had this whole thing set up for Duncan and Gwen, them making fun of Courtney for being so insane about being sick and Geoff for being such a sap, but Duncan just wouldn't let it happen. I swear, all the characters are alive inside my computer.

And now: Requests? Comments? Complaints? [Thoughts on Trent's sketch-identity?] Please, review or PM and let me know!


	6. Heather in Wonderland

Hello, everybody! I can hardly believe it's taken me this long to update. I will just say, I am sorry. It gets tough coming up with good ideas, but I have to say, I think this one coming at you all is a winner.

We have this chapter taking place during the Playa De Losers episode, back on the island while both Chris and Chef are gone for the weekend. When the cat's away the mice will play…

I will also tell you, this fic is based [loosely] on Alice in Wonderland, so if you don't remember the characters, you might want to take a second to visit Wikipedia and recall some of the major details. I won't tell you who's who because that would ruin the fun of reading, but I will say that every character here has an alternate Wonderland persona…

* * *

"Oh. My. GOD!" Heather, on her knees in the girls cabin, furiously tore through the contents of her many trendy suitcases. "It's not here!" A lopsided mountain of designer clothes and exclusive beauty products had accumulated behind her as she tossed item after item over her shoulders. "Oh, come on, I haven't moved it since I got here. Where _are _you?" She let out a frustrated shriek.

One could expect Heather to be searching for a photo of her siblings, or a family heirloom with high emotional value, or even that pair of pure silver earrings she'd gotten for her eleventh half-birthday (which had been stolen and later found on Duncan's person on more than one occasion). But no, Heather didn't have that kind of emotional depth. The only thing Heather missed about her family at the moment was their endless flow of cash. The only family heirloom she'd keep was one with high monetary value—not emotional. And that pair of earrings? They were pretty, but it wasn't like she wasn't going to get a nicer pair for her sixteenth half-birthday, coming up days after the grand finale of Total Drama Get-Me-The-Heck-Out-Of-Here.

Heather was searching for a necklace. More specifically, five tiny blood-red garnets (her birthstone) set into a 14 carat piece of gold in the shape of a crown, hanging on a pure gold chain so fine you could barely even see the links. It was, at the moment, her most prized possession (not to say it couldn't be replaced); whenever she began to feel overwhelmed by the mind-blowing concentration of loser on the island, she'd pull it out, see the crown, and be reminded that she _was _a queen (queen bee, at least), and how Wawanakwa was crucial practice for her eventual takeover of some large foreign nation. She never wore it at the camp, of course; it was far too expensive for her to risk it falling into the goo-infested lake, and if Duncan ever saw it, it would never be safe agai—_Duncan!_

Heather dropped her third smallest suitcase on the cabin floor, not even caring as four enormous bottles of hair product rolled onto the floor. Cringing at the idea of Duncan rifling through her belongings, she made a paranoid 360 around the cabin, as if just the thought of him would bring him to the door. However, seeing nothing but dying wildlife through the streaky cabin window, Heather let out one more sound of disgust before exiting the cabin in search of the thief. Being a perv was one thing. Being a delinquent was another. But being both? That meant war.

It also meant her suitcases and everything inside were in desperate need of industrial-strength cleaner.

* * *

"All right, Duncan!" Heather called, stomping through the forest. "I know you're in here somewhere. Give it up!" It wasn't hard for anyone to guess where Duncan was at any given moment. If he wasn't sleeping, stealing, or eating, he would almost always be found among the rotting trees. Back when his friends (and his lover) were still on the island, he would run around with them, but since Courtney, Geoff, Bridgette, and DJ had all been eliminated, the only person left for him was Gwen. And honestly, no one could take more than a 10 minute dose of _that_ without getting nauseous.

"Ouch!" Heather put her search on pause and leaned over to pull a twig out of her shoe. "Ugh," she cursed, recommencing her hunt. "Stupid forest," she muttered. "Stupid competition. Stupid Duncan. Stupid—" Heather coughed as the smell of smoke filled her nostrils. "What the…?" Heather spun around and saw it: a gray-tinted cloud floating through the trees, much too thick to be fog. Her first thought would have been _FIRE!_, but the forest was cool and green, not hot and orange. Against what might have been her better judgment, Heather followed the cloud and came upon Duncan, sitting on a hacked-up tree stump, smoking.

"Finally! Duncan, you have some serious explaining to do. Hand it over or else you are going to get seriousl—wait…" Heather pulled up short and looked from Duncan to the cigarette in his hand and back. "You _smoke?_" she asked, stunned.

Duncan raised an eyebrow, taking a pull off the thing to answer her question. The glowing orange tip was easily seen in the dark, and it lit up his face with a sickly glow.

Heather looked up at the canopy of trees, wishing more light was getting through. "Okay, I knew you were a delinquent and all, but…smoking? And then there's…and drugs. And the smell…" She fanned the air around her in a wild attempt to push the smoke away. _"Seriously_?" Heather considered herself to be socially perceptive. Why hadn't she picked up on this sooner?

"All right, Heather," Duncan said in a monotone. "What brings you here?"

The girl cocked her head to the right and examined him through narrowed eyes. "Why are you talking like that?"

Duncan took another drag from the cigarette in response, a puff of smoke escaping from his mouth a second later. Heather looked on, waiting for a verbal answer, but realized he wasn't planning on giving one. "Okay then," she continued. "Fine. Where is it, thief?"

Duncan looked at her blankly. "Where's what?"

"You know 'what'! You _obviously_ took it, and if you don't hand it over now, you're going to be sorry," Heather hissed.

Duncan examined the glowing embers on the end of his drug-stick. "Oh, really?" he asked absentmindedly.

"Really! Are you even listening to m—"

"Isn't it a nice day?" Duncan didn't even seem to realize she'd been speaking, much less that he'd interrupted her.

"…W-What?" Heather furrowed her eyebrows. The polite question somehow threw her off guard. That wasn't something that Duncan walked around saying.

He puffed out a leisurely ring of smoke before repeating the question slowly. "Don't you think it's a nice day?"

Heather rolled her eyes and responded with a flat, "No. This forest is rank and dank, and it smells like burning nicotine."

"That's just as well. We wouldn't be able to appreciate the light if we never had any dark."

Heather took a small step back as she considered his words. They were _way_ too philosophical for a smoking delinquent. "All right, Duncan, what the hell are you on? Because that sure isn't tobacco!"

"Oh, on the contrary," Duncan said, gazing at the stick in his hand as if to make sure it hadn't changed within the last minute. "It certainly is."

Heather snatched the thing out of his hand and examined it herself. It _looked _like one of those cigarettes her dad used to smoke before he quit, but could she really be sure?

Duncan looked up at her from where he sat on the tree stump. "Could I have that back presently?"

Heather threw it back at him, substantially freaked. "Why are you sounding so…smart?"

"Hmm," Duncan mused, taking another pull on the cigarette. "Why does anyone sound smart, really?

She opened and closed her mouth several times, like a fish. "Whatis_ wrong _with you?You're acting like even more of a freak than usual!"

"What's wrong with anyone? We're all freaks in a way. Every one of us here." Duncan cast a meaningful look at Heather before blowing smoke from his mouth. He smiled to himself as it made a perfect O in the air.

Heather shuddered. "Ugh! I'm getting away from you and your noxious fumes NOW! Something is up, don't think I don't see it." Heather pointed a menacing finger at the boy before turning to walk away.

"Oh, Heather," Duncan called, unhurried.

She didn't turn around. "WHAT?"

"I didn't take your necklace."

"Oh yeah, I really believe that!" she called sarcastically. Then she realized: she never told him that _it _was a necklace. And yet, against all logic, she believed him when he said he didn't take it. Turning around to confront him once more, she was met by a cloud of smoke, much thicker than any of the others he had previously produced. She coughed and fanned the air, and as the smoke cleared a few moments later, she saw Duncan's tree stump. He wasn't on it.

He was gone.

* * *

Heather hadn't run so far, so fast, in all her life. And in wedges, no less! After Duncan had pulled his magic act, she'd high-tailed it out of that forest, hardly even noticing as the branches snagged her dark hair and twigs got stuck in her stylish shoes. All she'd cared about was getting away from Duncan and his illegal, smoking, drug-doing self before she got infected. Weird was highly contagious.

"Gwen!" Heather called, upon spotting the girl, standing in the field in front of the cabins.

Gwen turned and, seeing a substantially freaked Heather running towards her, smiled deviously. "Heather. What can I do for you?"

Heather paused next to her, panting. "Did you know Duncan smokes?"

Gwen widened her eyes mockingly. "Duncan does _what_?"

"Smokes."

"Who does?" Gwen grinned.

"Oh my god, you're on it too." Heather shook her head as if to clear the thought from her mind. "Okay, forget it. I have a _question_ for you," she said suspiciously, folding her arms and doing her best to look nonnegotiable.

Gwen's smile remained frozen in place. "Fire away."

"Have you seen a necklace of mine? It's a crown on a gold chain and it has red garnets in it. My bet was that Duncan stole it, but he denies it, and while I don't trust that criminal farther than I can throw him, these seem like…" she searched for the right words. "Special circumstances."

"You thought Duncan stole what?" Gwen delicately picked up a strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes and smoothed it back.

"My necklace."

"You have a necklace?" Gwen's smile grew wider as she fingered her short hair felinely.

"Yes, I have a necklace!" Heather shouted, growing annoyed. "Short term memory loss much?"

Gwen eyed Heather's empty neck area. "Well, where is it?"

"Where's what?" Heather snapped.

"Your necklace, genius." Gwen rolled her eyes.

"If I knew, would I be talking to you right now?" Heather pursed her lips.

Gwen pondered for a moment. "Only you can know that," she replied cryptically. "You might be talking to me. Or you could be talking to someone else. But most likely, you'd be talking to no one at all." She shrugged and smiled unevenly. "Do you know how a raven is like a writing desk?"

"Oh, you want to tell me a joke. A joke?" Heather asked condescendingly, seconds away from punching Gwen in the center of her permanent smile. "Anyway, I've heard that one before."

Gwen's smile remained unaffected, though her eyebrows furrowed. "That's not the right answer."

"Well, duh! It's not an answer at all." Gwen smiled crookedly, not replying. "Fine then. Enlighten me. How is a raven like a writing desk?"

"I'm not sure," Gwen said. "Leshawna asked me. And I was asking you."

Heather blinked. That was nuts. Loco. Gwen had officially gone off the deep end. Heather looked back at the girl and her pale complexion, her black wardrobe to match her prickly black hair. That was one person who could seriously use some conditione—

"Hey," Heather said, abruptly switching gears. "Did you dye your hair?" she asked curiously, looking at the pure black mass on top of the other's head.

Gwen ran her fingers through her hair distractedly. "My hair?" Heather nodded her head. "No. Where would I even get hair dye?"

"But…the blue's gone. Your hair looks semi-normal now. You _must_ have dyed it."

"Are you very sure about that?" Gwen asked, widening her smile.

Heather looked down at Gwen. "Well of course I'm very…" She trailed off—the ugly blue streaks were back. "…sure? But your hair was just black a second ago! I'm _positive_." Heather snatched up a handful of the Gwen's hair and examined it. It _looked_ blue like usual, but that couldn't be possible.

"Heather," Gwen said giddily, nudging her in the ribs. "I think the island's finally gotten to you!"

Heather pushed the Goth away by her shoulders, sending her staggering back a few steps. "Uh-uh. No way," Heather quipped. "Just so you know—oh god." Heather pointed to Gwen's head, her free hand flying to her mouth. "Your hair's black. Right now. I'm looking at it with my _own_ _eyes_!"

Gwen began taking slow steps backwards. "Are you, Heather?" she asked. "Are you really?" Her lopsided smile stretched from ear to ear.

"Yes, I am!" Heather protested, rubbing her eyes. "I…" The blue streaks were back. Again. As Gwen continued to retreat into the distance, Heather stood in the afternoon sun, wondering if she was going crazy. Maybe the island _was_ getting to her. Or maybe Gwen and Duncan were planning something. They were trying to freak her out. That was it! And the necklace, that was just…the necklace! Heather squinted, trying to make out Gwen's silhouette in the distance. Unfortunately, it was too late.

She was gone.

* * *

Heather stumbled into the Dining Hall, hoping the weak air conditioning might help her recover from the heatstroke, or whatever it was she was experiencing. Grabbing one of the heinous orange mugs from the tea station, she made her way to the tap and filled it to the brim with water. Leaning against the wall, she gulped down its contents and then, feeling revived, glanced over the edge of the cup to see Leshawna watching her from where she sat at one of the tables.

Heather snorted. "Oh my god, _what _is wrong with your hair?" It had puffed out into a hideous afro, larger than the size of her head. It looked peculiarly similar to a hat. Heather wished she had a camera with her.

Leshawna gave Heather the 'talk to the hand' signal. "Oh, don't start with me girl. You know what happens when it gets humid outside!"

"But it's not humid today."

"Do you want to tell that to my hair?" Leshawna pulled out an oversized spoon and shoveled it into an oversized plastic container. Then, noticing Heather once more, Leshawna held out a second pudding cup. "Puh-ing?"

Heather's stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since that carelessly thrown together breakfast Chef had made before he and Chris went AWOL. "Pudding," she said dryly. "Really?"

"Really!" Leshawna mumbled through her full mouth. "It's the best stuff." She held out a cup to Heather, who took it hesitantly.

She sat down across from Leshawna, trying to suppress her repulsion. Such lows she had sunk to, eating a pudding cup, but it _was _food, after all. And Leshawna seemed to be in a generous mood. Might as well take advantage of it.

"Do you know what the carb count is on these things?" Heather inquired, carefully peeling off the foil on top.

"Not a clue!" Leshawna said, snatching the cup from Heather. "Looks like…330 calories." She slid the cup back to Heather.

Heather made a face. "I said carbs, not calories."

"Oh, for real?" Leshawna said, laughing to herself. "My bad, girl." She grabbed the cup from Heather a second time. "10%."

"10% what?" Heather asked warily.

Leshawna chuckled, handing the pudding cup to Heather again. "10% carbs, Queenie! What else?"

"Leshawna," Heather started snobbily, surreptitiously guarding her pudding cup from her grabby hands. "I don't know how to tell you this, but carbohydrates aren't measured in percentages. They're measured in _grams._" Heather went to look at the carb count herself, and she shuddered at its high value. "Oh my god, that's like…one third of my daily count! I don't know if I can eat this."

Leshawna's jaw dropped, making her look inexplicably offended. "Well don't have any then, Miss I'm-too-skinny-for-pudding-cups!" she announced, snatching the pudding out of Heather's hands. "You can find yo' own lunch."

Heather glanced around the room looking for a second witness to Leshawna's oddness, but she was sadly the only other person there. "Fine then!" Heather said as she turned and stalked to the door. "Bipolar, much?"

"Bipolar?" Leshawna said vaguely. "I'll have you know, I ain't bi nor am I a polar bear."

Heather whipped back around and took a few steps back to Leshawna, who was still digging into her pudding cup. She wasn't so stupid as to not know the meaning of bipolar…was she?

"You're not a polar bear," Heather restated, slapping her forehead. "That's great! Thanks for telling me. Because I never would have guessed you were actually, oh, I don't know, _human!_" Leshawna didn't seem to hear her. Either that or she was extremely good at ignoring Heather. Whichever way, it wasn't acceptable, so Heather continued. "You're starting to act like Izzy!" Heather froze and widened her eyes, taking in every detail of the girl in front of her. "Oh my god, you're Izzy in disguise."

Leshawna waved her free hand dismissively. "Psh, girl, no. Not even Izzy is good enough to duplicate this amount of bootyliciousness." She gestured to herself, and then to Heather's partially opened, cup-contained pudding. "Pudding?"

Heather's mouth fell open. "But you just said—"

"Oh please, who cares what I said? Pudding is meant to be eaten!" Leshawna pushed the pudding across the table to Heather's previous spot. "Sit, sit."

Heather sat, but only to avoid another of Leshawna's mood swings, she told herself. "I have a _question _for you," she said, folding her arms in the same way she had with Gwen. _Because that was so successful, _she added bitterly.

"Okay," Leshawna replied. "But you have to answer my question first."

Heather gingerly picked up a second spoon and plunged it into the pudding. It made an unappetizing, gloppy sound, but she supposed it was better than nothing. "What's your question?" Heather asked cautiously.

Leshawna folded her hands and leaned forward conspiratorially, posing the question, "How is the forest like your heart?"

Heather blinked and, coming up with no feasible answer, decided to humor Leshawna since she was being somewhat tolerable. "How?" she asked flatly, dipping her spoon into the pudding.

"They're both cold, dark, and empty."

Heather froze, her spoon dangling near her mouth. "_What _did you say to me?" So much for her being tolerable. That was harsh, even for Leshawna!—not that Heather cared. _Cold, dark and empty. Cold, dark, and empty_. The words whispered in her head before she mentally squashed them.

Leshawna, scooping the very last bit of pudding out of the plastic, shrugged distractedly and stood. "Later, girl."

"Wait! _Don't. You. Dare. Leave._" Heather abandoned her pudding on table and chased Leshawna to the door. "Where's my necklace?"

Leshawna blinked, her face completely free of any signs of guilt. "Owen has it."

Heather braced for confrontation. "No, don't even try to deny it. I know that y—" The words registered. "Wait. Why does Owen have my necklace?"

Leshawna scoffed, as if the answer should have been obvious. "Because you're darn mean. Period." She flounced out of the Dining Hall without another word.

"Get back here, Leshawna! You can't just leave!" …And yet she had. Heather leaned out the doorway to yell at her receding figure. "Don't be surprised if your afro is chopped off when you wake up tomorrow!" Leshawna didn't hear the empty threat, though.

She was gone.

* * *

"OWEN. OWEN!" Heather pounded on the door to his half of the cabin, seconds away from slamming the door open herself.

Someone from within cleared his throat. "Bring her in!" Owen called, his unmistakable giggle following.

Leshawna and Duncan slammed open the door, causing Heather to jump back. "Watch it!" she warned. "You almost _ruined_ my nose." She rubbed it tenderly where it would have received the impact. "Hey, let go of me!"

Duncan and Leshawna dragged her into the cabin by her wrists and deposited her in front of the largest collection of pillows and blankets she had ever seen; it reached just a meter short of the cabin ceiling. Owen rested upon them, as if the mound was a thrown, though it looked more like he had fallen butt-first into a volcano since the middle of it had collapsed under his massive weight. Most curiously of all, however: Heather's necklace hung around his neck, nearly choking him. (Heather's neck was less than half the size of his.)

Heather took a deep breath, preparing to handle Owen using the only tactic she knew he would respond to—pure animosity. "OWEN! _Why_ do you have my necklace? I demand you answer me now!" She stomped her stylishly clad foot for emphasis.

Owen narrowed his eyes and clapped twice in Gwen's direction. She hopped off her spot on the volcano, scampered down to where Heather stood, and clamped both of Heather's hands behind her back with a devious smile. Leshawna walked in front of Heather, folded her arms, and spat, "How dare you speak to the king like that."

"That's unspeakable!" Gwen chimed in from behind.

"Unheard of," Duncan asserted.

Heather shook free of Gwen's grasp and stared up at Owen from the base of the volcano. "The king of what? This island? Junk food? _Obesity?_" Heather whipped around to see that Gwen, Duncan, and Leshawna had gathered in a semi-circle behind her.

"Why, the King of Farts, of course!" they replied in unison.

Heather gaped at them. "That is absolutely the stupidest thing I've ever heard." She turned back around and looked up at Owen. "I don't care what you're the king of, Owen, you hear me? Give me back my necklace!"

Owen fell a bit deeper into his thrown. "Well, Heather," he said, chuckling. "I'd be happy to give it to you if you can prove that it's yours." He turned to Duncan. "Put her on the stand!" Duncan grabbed Heather from behind and pushed her onto a stool, though Owen remained several heads above her still. "Assemble the witnesses!" The three leapt up and sat in a row on the bottom bunk of the bed. "Who's first?"

"Me," Duncan called, waving a hand in the air.

"Proceed!" Owen called jovially.

Duncan stood and addressed Owen. "Heather's pure evil, and she doesn't give a damn about it. She'd stab someone in the back sooner than I would, and that's saying something." Duncan sat back down, but not before casting a flinty glare in Heather's direction.

Heather gazed at Duncan in disbelief, taking a moment to recover from her stunned silence. "Wh—wha—I object! That doesn't have a thing to do with you taking my neckl—"

"SILENCE!" Owen boomed. "Next witness!"

Gwen dusted herself off and approached the volcano. "Heather is conniving and mean, and even worse, she doesn't care. She'll step on anyone and everyone to win, and doesn't see anything wrong with it." Gwen smiled unnaturally in Heather's direction before returning to her seat between the others.

"Mmmm," Owen said, considering her words. "I see. Very important. Remember that!" The three witnesses nodded their heads quickly. "Last witness!"

"Wait!" Heather called. "Don't I get to testif—?"

"I said, SILENCE!" Owen laughed nervously. "It's Leshawna's turn." He gestured to the her.

Leshawna rose. "Heather is mean just for the fun of it. She gets a kick out of hurtin' people, plain and simple. She's got a black hole where her heart should be, and some sorta schemin' device in her head instead of a conscience."

"I see, I see," Owen murmured, glancing at Heather's head curiously; the scheming device didn't appear to reveal itself to him. "All right. Assemble the jury!"

Leshawna, Duncan, and Gwen hopped up and climbed to the top bunk, shuffling their order before settling themselves up above. They turned around, conversed for a moment, and then faced Owen once more.

"Jury, have you reached a verdict?"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Heather protested, stranded on her designated stool. "The witnesses can't be the jury too! They're totally biased. This is completely ridiculous!" She threw her hands above her head to accent the statement.

Everyone ignored her as Duncan spoke up. "We've reached our decision, Your Majesty."

Owen smiled happily. "And it is…?"

The three spoke together. "GUILTY!"

"That settles it!" Owen called, flailing about in order to free himself from the volcano. Sliding down the pile of pillows like a rockslide, he turned to Heather. "Are you ready for your sentence?"

"My sentence for what?" she called, losing her cool. "Being _mean?_ This is the most pointless trial I've ever seen! You're nothing but an obese, naïve idiot who has no idea what he's talking about! You're stupid and fat and no one would _ever _make you the king of _anything_!"

For a moment, the room stood still. Nobody spoke. Or breathed. Heather widened her eyes as she registered what she'd just said, and the other three stood frozen in wait. Owen's face crumpled in on itself as though he was going to cry, but a moment later the look was entirely gone, replaced with a stony glare never before seen on such an innocent face.

"OFF WITH HER HAIR!" he cried, throwing himself about the cabin with the force of a raging tornado. Duncan appeared out of nowhere with his favorite chainsaw while Leshawna and Gwen tackled Heather to the ground and held her there.

The blades of the chainsaw were getting closer and closer as Duncan loomed over her head, a malevolent smirk on his face. Owen stood at Heather's feet watching the action, while Gwen and Leshawna grinned from where they pinned her to the ground. "Will you say you're sorry?" Owen asked, surprisingly gently.

"NO!" she cried. In a split second, the cool and collected Heather had been replaced with a wild, desperate one. She kicked with her free leg and made contact with someone's shin.

Owen's kindness instantly evaporated. "Say it!" he screeched.

The chainsaw was nearing her scalp. "Fine!" Heather shrieked. "I'm sorry, okay? I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY! Just let me go!" She broke into sobs just as the chainsaw connected with her raven-colored hair. The last thing she saw was Owen standing over her, a disappointed look on his face, the necklace still strung around his neck. And then, a moment later:

Everything was gone.

* * *

Heather awoke in a crazed panic, shrieking at the top of her lungs. She flailed around her bunk in an attempt to throw off the dingy covers, succeeding only in falling off the top bunk and landing in a tangled mess on the floor. She clutched at her hair and looked around her. "My hair! My hair, my hair, my beautiful hair," she sobbed, grabbing a handful and yanking it over her eyes to make sure it was really there. It was.

She threw the blanket off her bruising body and stared up at the ceiling of the empty cabin, rubbing her head where it had collided with the floor. A single tear slid down her cheek as she blinked, but she quickly wiped the weakness away. Sleep-crying_, _all because of an absurd dream. She was pathetic.

As the details of the nightmare came flooding back to her quickly, something struck her as odd. "I don't even have a necklace like that. Where the heck did that come from?" she asked herself. Her dreams were always so random. They were always seriously symbolic, too. It was getting tiresome. _She'd stab someone in the back sooner than I would… Heather is conniving and mean, and even worse, she doesn't care… She's got a black hole where her heart should be, and some sorta schemin' device in her head instead of a conscience… _Was it all true? Was she really that…that…

"Ugh!" Heather cried. "Just forget about it!" Furiously rubbing at her eyes once more, she shoved herself up off the floor and went about applying her make-up like usual. She covered up the blotchy red spots and tear-stains on her face, and a minute later it was like she had never been crying at all.

She leaned against the wall and told herself she would be fine. It had just been a dream. No one was going to cut off her hair with a chainsaw—especially not _Owen, _the King of Farts! That was ridiculous. In a couple of hours, she wouldn't even be able to remember the dream at all. Already, the details were fading, thank god.

Soon, they'd be gone.

* * *

Did you get all my allusions to Wonderland? Just in case you didn't:

Heather is Alice. Since the second season has progressed, I'm starting to think that maybe she's not such a bad person after all. She _is, _but I wanted to explore a different, more confused side to her. I have to say, it was an interesting experience.

Duncan is the Caterpillar. I sincerely don't think he smokes, at least not on the island, but it came time for me to pick a caterpillar and he seemed like the obvious choice.

Gwen is the Cheshire Cat. I hope that the whole hair-changing-colors thing wasn't too vague for everyone. I just couldn't bear to take it out after I thought of it, so I tossed in all of the smiling to give another clue…

Leshawna is the Mad Hatter. Someone needed to be dealing with food, and I'm just a bit obsessed with her one-time mentioned pudding cups, so she was the obvious choice as well. It was definitely the most difficult to channel Mad Hatter through her, if I succeeded at all.

Owen is the Queen of Hearts! I thought it would be wonderfully ironic to make Owen the evil one compared to Heather. And I have to say, as soon as I thought of the King of Farts I knew I had to do it. It was a sign!

And finally, I'm sure you all caught the OFF WITH HER HEAD/OFF WITH HER HAIR comparison. Don't you just love that delicious irony? You keep telling yourself that no one's going to chop off your hair, Heather…

Review and let me know how many of the characters you figured out! I'm really interested to know how many of us are up on our Alice in Wonderland…

Also, big thanks to strayphoenix for directing some of her deviantART viewers here. (:

~Rina


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